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Count Chocula posted:How do we get governments to take Eco-terrorism seriously? The Bush ALEC-friendly oil crowd used the FBI as a ninja squad to squash and chill environmental activism. (Google.) Canada is working on matching the BushCo push, but in a more scattershot way. http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/7-ways-canada-environmental-groups-labeled-terrorists/6374/ "Eco-terrorists" are jailed like "hijack airplane" terroists, and in the same spaces. http://www.thenation.com/article/159161/gitmo-heartland?page=full For that matter "taking pictures of farms" is now a criminal act in parts of the US because it is "activism" that might expose the illegal poo poo going on. There are threads going on right now about that very topic. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3546880&pagenumber=1 These threads also have also had people who defend ag-gag laws over the years. These are the best threads. Monsanto is Way and the Light. All Hail.
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Jul 4, 2013 08:08
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acephalousuniverse posted:I don't have a kid, I just want lots of people to die. So like, is that a serious statement of opinion, or just you being poo poo at trolling, 'cause I'd believe either.
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Jul 4, 2013 08:09
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acephalousuniverse posted:I don't have a kid, I just want lots of people to die. Why is anyone responding to this poo poo-heap? He is obviously a troll, or brain damaged. Just ignore him so we can get back to what was a pretty interesting discussion about how GMO crops are good and useful and how paranoid idiots with little understanding of science and a boatload of misconceptions think GMO foods are bad for you no matter what. I'm curious what the cross-over from the anti-vaccine crowd is into the anti-GMO crowd? I always have a lingering suspicion that the anti-vaccine people got the anti-GMO ball rolling but I have no real proof.
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Jul 4, 2013 16:21
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Pobama posted:I'm curious what the cross-over from the anti-vaccine crowd is into the anti-GMO crowd? 'bout 100%, I'd suspect. I really hate how mainstream 'liberal' websites give so much credence to both anti-vax, anti-GMO, and anti-nuke platforms (Lookin' at you, HuffPo).
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Jul 4, 2013 16:51
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Well, anti-GMO predates anti-vaccine, at least in terms of the modern anti-vacc movement I'd say. Obviously vaccines are older than GMOs but anti-vacc became basically a non-entity for a long time. Also, Huff Po isn't really liberal at all. It's purely mercenary in its political stance and Huffington herself was a pretty arch conservative and anti-feminist in the 90s.
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Jul 4, 2013 17:35
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acephalousuniverse posted:I don't have a kid, I just want lots of people to die. I am hoping that this is just a failed attempt at irony. It is interesting though. If I were going to create a shill strategy it might look something like this. 1- align with anti 'Monsanto' rhetoric at a superficial level 2- attempt to polarize the conversation in a reactionary manner that creates artificial distinctions of good and evil 3- conflate any real questions into such reactionary vitriol 4- do so in a way that discredits any real reflection on nuanced concerns and obsfucates what is actually occurring, thereby eliminating anything meaningful in the domain of practical dialogue or action It would be far more effective at sterotyping anyone with any actual questions and feed into the conversations to categorize all such questions as coming from some 'type', thereby discrediting any and all questions that might vary from the corporate rhetoric and special interest research. It simply eliminates the ability to parse the meaningful, benificial actions and research from the potentially legitimate questions and concerns that might actually improve the quality of research, implementation and practice. Whether that is intended or not, it is serving that purpose. Sogol fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 18:11
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serewit posted:'bout 100%, I'd suspect. I really hate how mainstream 'liberal' websites give so much credence to both anti-vax, anti-GMO, and anti-nuke platforms (Lookin' at you, HuffPo). I feel part of the difficulty is that we often end up in a relationship to science that is scientism. Some of this is produced by the assertions of absolute truths that reside in a few authorized hands. Many people have not developed any capacity or do not have the time to navigate the increasing level of specialization, even when scientifically literate. The result is that we end up with a relationship to science that is analogius 'true believers' and 'atheists', niether of whom are necessarily scientifically literate. Some of this is amplified when we assert that objectivism and the scientific method are the only meaningful forms of epistemology and treat them as if they were exhaustively relevant in terms of ontology. The introduction of dialectic can help dissolve this, but you first have to set up the conditions for that to take place, which itself can be a massive undertaking, even in highly educated groups and communities.
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Jul 4, 2013 18:20
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Sogol posted:I feel part of the difficulty is that we often end up in a relationship to science that is scientism. Some of this is produced by the assertions of absolute truths that reside in a few authorized hands. Many people have not developed any capacity or do not have the time to navigate the increasing level of specialization, even when scientifically literate. The result is that we end up with a relationship to science that is analogius 'true believers' and 'atheists', niether of whom are necessarily scientifically literate. Some of this is amplified when we assert that objectivism and the scientific method are the only meaningful forms of epistemology and treat them as if they were exhaustively relevant in terms of ontology. The introduction of dialectic can help dissolve this, but you first have to set up the conditions for that to take place, which itself can be a massive undertaking, even in highly educated groups and communities. Why do you believe this pejorative concept even applies to the discussion at hand when the issue is that people refuse to learn, understand or believe the underlying scientific concepts at hand and then cause significant harm to others in the process?
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Jul 4, 2013 18:35
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Solkanar512 posted:Why do you believe this pejorative concept even applies to the discussion at hand when the issue is that people refuse to learn, understand or believe the underlying scientific concepts at hand and then cause significant harm to others in the process? Because the people in question believe that they're following real science that are not biased by government conspiracies.
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Jul 4, 2013 18:36
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Also because if you learn dialectics then you don't have to learn, understand or believe the underlying scientific concepts because you can argue that there is no such thing as "science" or "concept". Therefor kill your parents or something.
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Jul 4, 2013 18:47
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acephalousuniverse posted:I don't have a kid, I just want lots of people to die.  The diminishing of the State in relation to Market Conglomerates isn't environmentally sound. For the benefit of preexisting Multinationals fossil fuels remain subsidized and central to most economic activity (since the only interest of these Market Conglomerates is profit/dividends). Nation-State institutions are supposed to be conglomerates that act in the long term interest of their commonwealth. Expanding the 'free trade zone', abusing information technology, and ignoring fission power is negligent of that responsibility and confidence.
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Jul 4, 2013 18:50
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Solkanar512 posted:Why do you believe this pejorative concept even applies to the discussion at hand when the issue is that people refuse to learn, understand or believe the underlying scientific concepts at hand and then cause significant harm to others in the process? Well, not everyone actually has the opportunity in the way that you are suggesting. My comments were not meant to pejorative. Scientism, in both the 'believer' and 'atheistic' sense is related to the literacy you are pointing to. A 'true believer' in science is no more scientifically literate than a 'denier,' and most likely does not understand the scientific process, the history of science or the context in which that is occurring. Doing so typically requires a fairly significant identity shift, in addition to needing to learn the various distinctions and languages involved. 'Learning' in that context is not trivial. There is also the very real question of availability to the resources involved. Just to be clear, since it is a very real issue, I am in no way a proponent of violence in theory or practice, mostly because I think it simply does not work. I also do not feel the violence is limited to the immediacy of proximal cause, which as a scientist you can likely understand. Often such violence occurs out of a state of desperation in which someone has no sense of agency otherwise. That cannot simply be understood or worked with as having only to do with the individual(s). Unpinning the violence is not, for me, a matter of objectifying and categorizing one group of people. Typically this reinforces the violent dynamic in my experience.
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Jul 4, 2013 18:54
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karthun posted:Also because if you learn dialectics then you don't have to learn, understand or believe the underlying scientific concepts because you can argue that there is no such thing as "science" or "concept". Therefor kill your parents or something. I don't understand this argument. Perhaps you could say more about how you imagine the dialectics promotes some sort of ignorance? I was referred to a book in another thread I found very useful on this relationship between dialectics and science - "Biology Under the Influence" by Lewontin and Levins. It is essays and a pretty good read. Of course Kuhn is also a pretty good read and gets into this as well. I have just started re-reading "Towards a Rational Society" by Habermas which also deals with the question.
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Jul 4, 2013 19:06
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Sogol posted:I don't understand this argument. Perhaps you could say more about how you imagine the dialectics promotes some sort of ignorance? Don't come here, tell everyone they are wrong, then tell us to read books and then our eyes will be opened by the Truth. To paraphrase Einstein if you can't explain your argument simply you do not understand what youre talking about. I am not saying that the dialectic method promotes ignorance, just that YOU are ignorant on the subject matter because when pushed you have to retreat to the language of dialectics rathern than stating your argument.
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Jul 4, 2013 19:47
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Scientism is a thing, but I'm not convinced that it's particularly applicable here considering that the topic falls pretty squarely in the domain of science, disagreements seem primarily fact-driven, and the actual scientific subject matter is pretty mainstream and well within the grasp of a non-specialist. I don't see the part of the argument where it's established why scientism is a particular danger in this specific situation or what a non-empirical perspective could even bring to the subject. It's just been dropped here because somebody saw the word science and thought this would be a great time to try and derail into something else.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:01
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karthun posted:Don't come here, tell everyone they are wrong, then tell us to read books and then our eyes will be opened by the Truth. To paraphrase Einstein if you can't explain your argument simply you do not understand what youre talking about. I am not saying that the dialectic method promotes ignorance, just that YOU are ignorant on the subject matter because when pushed you have to retreat to the language of dialectics rathern than stating your argument. Who have I said is 'wrong'? Perhaps you could quote that? Where exactly do you think I am in an argument? Perhaps you could quote that too? With the exception of the soil science and scaled ag questions I think I have responded to everything directly asked of me, sometimes ideographically, sometimes with references. Whether or not you agree/disagree with any of that is a different matter. Personally I am more interested in a diverse landscape than I am in particular instances of agree/disagree, but that is just my interest. I have not responded in detail to the ag questions because I was given to understand they are out of scope for the thread and that makes sense to me. I think that the ag system and food system could really be its own thread, but have not found one like that yet. Oddly you seem to think that I am anti-science in some way, at the same time you seem unwilling to consider the sources for reflection that I simply pointed to. I am have been really clear I am not a specialist in the way people tend to think about that. I am also not simply ignorant with respect to a scientific acquisition of the world, scientific method, etc. as I think I have made clear. I also really don't understand your reaction to suggesting some sources. Are you familiar with them or are you just reacting? If you are just reacting, how exactly is that different from the clear criticisms that people have been making of such reactionary stances with regard to science. I confess it is confusing to me. I am not really interested in reducing the nature of my interaction in the world to some convenient version of right/wrong. Reducing the notion of communication in that way means that it becomes impossible to communicate in the absence of conflict or an asserted problem. People seem pretty heavily invested in what occurs for me as a degree of fairly artificial polarization. Likely it just seems that way to me. It seems to me that you have resorted to an odd ad hominem without engaging the question. Of course that is your prerogative or I may simply be misunderstanding you, which is why I asked the question.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:13
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karthun posted:I am not saying that the dialectic method promotes ignorance, just that YOU are ignorant on the subject matter because when pushed you have to retreat to the language of dialectics rathern than stating your argument.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:18
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Sogol posted:I don't understand this argument. Perhaps you could say more about how you imagine the dialectics promotes some sort of ignorance? You're not the only one here with a philosophy of science background. I have read all of these works and I don't think they're really that relevant to this situation. Again, you name-drop academics and general concepts but either you don't have a solid grasp of the subject or else you're just too lazy to actually fit your knowledge to the specifics of the topic. I'm not saying you're stupid, but there's a real lack of effort in how you bring things up and expect other people to make connections and make your arguments for you. I can't tell if it's that you're expecting some hyper-collaborative setting where you throw out ideas for other people to flesh out, or if you're being insulting and trying to impress people by throwing out random vaguely relevant crap. It's not good enough just to mention that these things exist considering that many of us were already aware of their existence. DACK FAYDEN posted:I just skip his posts when I hit the third polysyllabic word I don't know... so about three sentences in, usually. Is this common, that people jump into an argument about the physical impacts of GMOs by bringing in the moral element and then throwing around philosophical terms half the audience doesn't understand? No, it's a pretty novel approach. And I'm not impressed because I'm used to this stuff from my day job and I haven't yet been impressed by the quality of the actual thought going on behind the dressing. Academics get lazy too. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 20:18
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DACK FAYDEN posted:terms half the audience doesn't understand?
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Jul 4, 2013 20:22
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Sogol posted:Just to be clear, since it is a very real issue, I am in no way a proponent of violence in theory or practice, mostly because I think it simply does not work. Ah so if firebombing labs was an effective tactic, you'd be totally for it. Way to bury the lede, buddy.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:38
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Count Chocula posted:I'm defending Monsanto, because I haven't seen evidence that what they do is bad in any significant way They heavily contributed to one of the worst wars of imperial aggression in human history and the borderline genocide of the peoples of Indochina. They continue to collaborate with the US government in imposing heavy handed economic policy in the third world and elsewhere that directly creates hunger and suffering for the benefit of the first world while ravaging their land and resources through basically pressuring them into growing food that will go on not to feed them and virtually deprive them of any ability to grow food that will actually feed them. Anyone who gives the tiniest bit of a gently caress about world hunger does not operate an enormous and profitable business at that scale, withhold/horde allegedly life saving technology for their own benefit, and does not operate like a loving gangster making examples out of those who dare to step on their toes to intimidate others into submission. Monsanto is a comically evil entity that has no right to exist, if you care in the slightest about starving people and believe in the ability for GMOs to do anything to help them you either automatically categorically oppose their predatory practices and the very notion of trying to own the building blocks of life in general. That poo poo should be 100% public domain and there's no non-evil reason for believing otherwise, if its of any use at all. The relationship between the US government and corporations like Monsanto is basically quasi-fascist and an integral part of maintain the terrible and oppressive global order that sustains world hunger, there's more than enough food as it is now to feed the world. The only thing stopping that from happening is your precious loving profit motive, don't even bother with the capitalism.txt you can't handwave away genocide by neglect and its precisely people like you conflating science as a whole with the bastards that misuse it for evil that keeps people ignorant and/or complacent. Don't pretend that none of this poo poo is connected, willful ignorance will not save you from culpability in supporting organized crime against humanity.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:41
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Cream_Filling posted:You're not the only one here with a philosophy of science background. I have read all of these works and I don't think they're really that relevant to this situation. Again, you name-drop academics and general concepts but either you don't have a solid grasp of the subject or else you're just too lazy to actually fit your knowledge to the specifics of the topic. I'm not saying you're stupid, but there's a real lack of effort in how you bring things up and expect other people to make connections and make your arguments for you. I can't tell if it's that you're expecting some hyper-collaborative setting where you throw out ideas for other people to flesh out, or if you're being insulting and trying to impress people by throwing out random vaguely relevant crap. It's not good enough just to mention that these things exist considering that many of us were already aware of their existence. You have actually been very generous with me in terms of taking the time to give me very direct feedback. I am not being ironic or facetious in saying that. I am attempting (and failing) to have a conversation. I am attemtping to have it as I actually am. In some threads this seems to work well, in others it seems to simply offend people. The way I attempt to say things is apparently so offensive to some people that they cannot seem to interact with what i might be trying (and failing) to say. I take the position that this is on me, not on them. I also struggle to actually consider some of the things being considered, which occur for me as quite complex, without resorting to convenience and reductionism. This is probably an irredeemable character flaw on my part. I do not yet know if it will prevent me from being able to function as a contributing member of this community or not. I do assume a radical context of collaboration. I do in fact assume that people are familiar with many of the sources and will make their own choices about whether to read the types of things I am writing. This is why I subscribed in fact. In the short time I have been here I have been introduced to a bunch of great sources, arguments and materials. I already use what I imagine I am learning in my work, practice and writing. This particular thread is incredibly polarized, it seems to me. I do not experience myself as occupying one of the poles involved. Far from it. I feel I am related to consistently as if I am somehow representing on of these poles in some way. I don't fully understand that and some of the comments have been useful in trying to understand it. I have really been trying to unfold something about why and how people get freaked out, without simply categorizing one or the other represented poles as some sort of cartoon. In short about GMOs I believe I have said that there seem to be three kinds of concern: 1- personal safety: not scientifically grounded, but not hard to understand in terms of people's relationship to what they ingest. I agree that this concern when politicized and socialized actually hampers the R&D process, rather than improving the quality. It becomes a political process and as a result all the possible issues related to corporate actors gets conflated into it. 2- process safety: this has to with both the process of developing and applying the technology in the world. Reasonable debate and challenge in this area does serve to improve the quality of R&D. Corporations and research institutions are often structurally hampered in this. That is not some big controversial secret. 3- the contextualizing supply chain and corporate reality in and through which the R&D and implementation are taking place. This is one of the areas that gets very polarized (good/evil) in a way that makes it very hard to see what is actually occurring or work with that in a meaningful way, distinct from any other specific concerns. This third area opens up onto so many things that it can be hard to parse, but again that could really just be my eccentricity in the matter. The OP is about how to talk with people who are considered scientifically illiterate and acting in some way based on that. Really, I am continuing to wonder about that and try to explore it in general, as well as with respect to GMOs in particular. So far the attempts have lead to further polarization, objectification of entire categories of people, attribution and ad hominem for the most part. This does not seem to be limited to one side of the conversation or another. I did not take the thread as one limited to making the scientific argument for GMOs, but really as about how to have this sort of dialogue given very challenging conditions. Mostly I have apparently modeled how not to do this in the thread. I dont think I am alone that though. I may have misunderstood or have been naive in that understanding. It would not surprise me.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:56
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Mr. Self Destruct posted:They heavily contributed to one of the worst wars of imperial aggression in human history and the borderline genocide of the peoples of Indochina. I mean god, man, from the very first sentence you're demonstrating just how skewed your viewpoint is. The gulf between the reality here and your paraphrasing of it, and the moral culpability implied, is simply breathtaking. Strudel Man fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 20:58
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Strudel Man posted:By which you mean, "they were one of several companies the U.S. government contracted to manufacture agent orange," right? This is actually more reasonable than you're thinking. The problem here isn't the toxicity, which all available evidence indicates nobody knew about. The problem is that the US specifically used Agent Orange to target food crops, in the hopes of driving Vietnamese citizens to the slums where they could be more easily policed. This wasn't widely publicized, but it was a matter of public record. So Monsanto definitely either knew or should have known about this, and should have refused to produce it. The rest of that post is basically textbook "I believe every negative thing I hear about Monsanto", though. (They're probably one of the best companies in the world about not aggressively using the law; people have too many imaginary stories of Monsanto bullying farmers to let them get away with a real one.) Amarkov fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 21:15
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Sogol posted:You have actually been very generous with me in terms of taking the time to give me very direct feedback. I am not being ironic or facetious in saying that. I am attempting (and failing) to have a conversation. I am attemtping to have it as I actually am. In some threads this seems to work well, in others it seems to simply offend people. The way I attempt to say things is apparently so offensive to some people that they cannot seem to interact with what i might be trying (and failing) to say. I take the position that this is on me, not on them. I also struggle to actually consider some of the things being considered, which occur for me as quite complex, without resorting to convenience and reductionism. This is probably an irredeemable character flaw on my part. I do not yet know if it will prevent me from being able to function as a contributing member of this community or not. I do assume a radical context of collaboration. I do in fact assume that people are familiar with many of the sources and will make their own choices about whether to read the types of things I am writing. This is why I subscribed in fact. In the short time I have been here I have been introduced to a bunch of great sources, arguments and materials. I already use what I imagine I am learning in my work, practice and writing. If you are assuming that we're already familiar with the sources you refer to, why do you spend time and space giving general summaries of them when you reference them instead of pointing out the interesting part, which is the connections you see and the relevant points and new material you can draw from them? I'm sure some people reacting poorly to you is just because they've mistaken you for taking a side, or else because they're intimidated by your references and vocabulary, but other people I think react negatively because you spend so little time on the interesting parts of the stuff you bring up, which instantly makes people suspicious because it makes it seem like you're trying to obfuscate instead of clarify. I understand that this might be a stylistic thing, or an attempt at being socratic or illustrative by showing how you came to this connection, or simply because it's an idea that you haven't fully developed yet, but the problem is that there's a certain level of development before which you're pretty much imposing on the reader and that's not going work if you haven't built up some base level of trust which may exist in person but probably not on the internet, at least not in an already pretty adversarial thread like this. I can see that you're used to being very collaborative and throwing out things like this is a brainstorm session or research meeting or something, but I just don't think that works in (at the very least) these more polarized threads, which tend to be based on a much more adversarial format. It's more assumed that you will go through these possibilities and pick out what you think are the most relevant or strongest points that other people have missed so far. If people don't get it, you'll see this lack of understanding in their responses and then you can launch into a more general summary of the terms you've used or the works you're referencing. You've also definitely not been the worst part of the thread, by the way. That medal definitely goes to the people who are so angry that they can't even think straight anymore and often mix good points with bad but nobody's going to go after them for it because they're just going to explode if you say a word to them at all. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 21:17
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Mr. Self Destruct posted:They heavily contributed to one of the worst wars of imperial aggression in human history and the borderline genocide of the peoples of Indochina. They continue to collaborate with the US government in imposing heavy handed economic policy in the third world and elsewhere that directly creates hunger and suffering for the benefit of the first world while ravaging their land and resources through basically pressuring them into growing food that will go on not to feed them and virtually deprive them of any ability to grow food that will actually feed them. So wait haven't we already gone over this in the thread? Monsanto's actions in the third world are sort of lovely, but apparently the fact that farmers have contractual obligations to follow if they want to plant Monsanto crops (and not even "sacrifice your firstborn" type obligations, more "you have to buy all Monsanto or none") makes them literally the incarnation of evil and the worst human beings to walk the earth since the Khmer Rouge? Did these people kill your family or something? You realize there are multinationals in the third world causing a whole heck of a lot more human misery than them, right? Yes of course Monsanto is not an organization dedicated to ending world hunger, it's dedicated to making money. Surprise? If your problem is with companies making money off science rather than using it for purely altruistic motives then your problem is with the profit motive and the very existence of patents and copyright. Take your assertion that all research should be 100% public domain. Why wouldn't that apply to all scientific research? Do you think third world countries aren't harmed by licensing and copyright in the realm of industry and manufacturing? Why shouldn't all advances in that area be made public domain? As far as ways to make money in the third world go, selling genetically modified crops to farmers on terms that could possibly be more charitable isn't really the most horrifically evil thing in the world.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:23
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Amarkov posted:This is actually more reasonable than you're thinking. The problem here isn't the toxicity, which all available evidence indicates nobody knew about. The problem is that the US specifically used Agent Orange to target food crops, in the hopes of driving Vietnamese citizens to the slums where they could be more easily policed. This wasn't widely publicized, but it was a matter of public record. So Monsanto definitely either knew or should have known about this, and should have refused to produce it. How on earth would they have known? The nominal purpose of Agent Orange was as a defoliant to remove air cover from the jungle. That's what the government said when they were purchasing it. Expecting Monsanto to independently figure out if the government ever covertly misused their products in a warzone where the military controls all information and classifies everything, then expecting them to stop sales or somehow confiscate the huge amounts of stuff already sold is kind of ridiculous. Monsanto's pretty evil, but this is just not a very good example of them being evil. At worst, it makes them amoral, which is bad but not exactly uniquely bad.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:25
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icantfindaname posted:the fact that farmers have contractual obligations to follow if they want to plant Monsanto crops (and not even "sacrifice your firstborn" type obligations, more "you have to buy all Monsanto or none") Is this actually a fact? I've never actually been given an example of such a contract. e: quote:How on earth would they have known? The nominal purpose of Agent Orange was as a defoliant to remove air cover from the jungle. That's what the government said when they were purchasing it. No, this isn't true. It wasn't talked about very much in the media, so not many people were aware of it, but the fact that Agent Orange would be used to destroy crops was not secret. Monsanto (and Dow) had a responsibility to be more informed about this than the average guy on the street. Amarkov fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 21:26
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I don't even know. It was cited earlier by anti-Monsanto people, so I used it as an example. It's entirely possible they don't even do that. I was just trying to point out that the hysteria surrounding Monsanto is conspicuously absent from, say, literally every single other multinational that has an effect on third world development.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:28
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Amarkov posted:Is this actually a fact? I've never actually been given an example of such a contract. Uh that's absolutely the excuse used when procuring Agent Orange. It's not like defoliant is nerve gas or something where there's a particularly special capacity for harm that creates some distinct moral burden on the seller, either. I'm all for higher standards in regards to corporate behavior, but I think your standards are unrealistically high. I'd reserve the moral culpability for not having better quality assurance or concerns about possible contamination and the way they handled the subsequent scandals for people exposed to that stuff, as well as later bullshit showing a pattern of behavior where they were literally getting crooked laboratories to lie about research and lab results to avoid paying out in lawsuits for other harmful chemical shenanigans. See: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lnn13c00/pdf http://planetwaves.net/contents/faking_it.html OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 21:35
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Cream_Filling posted:Uh that's absolutely the excuse used when procuring Agent Orange. It's not like defoliant is nerve gas or something where there's a particularly special capacity for harm that creates some distinct moral burden on the seller, either. I'm all for higher standards in regards to corporate behavior, but I think your standards are unrealistically high. I'd reserve the moral culpability for not having better quality assurance or concerns about possible contamination and the way they handled the subsequent scandals for people exposed to that stuff, as well as later bullshit showing a similar pattern of behavior where they were literally getting crooked laboratories to lie about research and lab results to avoid paying out in lawsuits for other harmful chemical shenanigans. You also have to consider that the guys running Dow and Monsanto and DuPont and the others at the time were largely veterans of WWII. Supplying what their government asked for to fight a war would be an act of patriotic duty for them. They would not even think to ask what it was going to be used for.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:39
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Deteriorata posted:You also have to consider that the guys running Dow and Monsanto and DuPont and the others at the time were largely veterans of WWII. Supplying what their government asked for to fight a war would be an act of patriotic duty for them. They would not even think to ask what it was going to be used for. Yeah, I suppose this is a good point. It's a lot easier to say "oh well they should have checked if the US wanted to commit genocide" post-Vietnam.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:41
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Monsanto is hard to sue, therefore they are a Good Thing. http://truth-out.org/news/item/59 quote:Here is the paragraph that defines Monsanto's limit of liability that shifts it to the farmer: Aside from astroturf brigades on a variety of PR platforms, "Monsanto Always Wins". http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/9:why-monsanto-always-wins quote:... Later emails show a USDA regulator accepted Monsanto's help with drafting the initial environmental assessment (EA) of the alfalfa and planned to "cut and paste" parts of Monsanto's revised petition right into the government's assessment. There is no actual oversight. The pro-Monsanto shills self-congratulating themselves for their "reasonableness" and "enlightened thinking" are a mix of confused idealists, and the reactionary-malicious. quote:The USDA claims that the probability of gene flow between GE and non-GE alfalfa is very low, but the EIS does document several instances of transgenic contamination. About 200,000 acres of Roundup Ready alfalfa in 48 states were planted and harvested in 2005 and 2006 before the CFS lawsuit forced a ban. During this time, two alfalfa seed production firms, Dairyland and Cal/West Seeds, reported transgenic contamination in non-GE alfalfa seeds in California, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Dairyland reported contamination rates hovering around 1 percent, but in 2009, Cal/West reported that 12 percent of more than 200 alfalfa seed lots were contaminated with transgenes, and in 2008, all six of the firm's research lots tested positive for GE contamination. Preliminary data from 2009 showed that 30 percent of seed stock lots were contaminated. If you cant trust paid-for "regulation", what can you trust?  quote:Freese said that, like the data provided on cross-contamination provided by Forage Genetics, the USDA relies on data from industry-funded groups like the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy (NCFAP) and PG Economics.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:44
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Amarkov posted:Except that's not at all the same thing. If you wish to label your food as GMO-containing or GMO-free, that's not illegal, quotes or otherwise. What was rejected was a law that would require foods containing GMOs to put this on the label. I think it's mainly not having the right to choose that bothers people. And even if a product is labeled "GMO Free" there will always be companies which find a way around the claims. Gotta love legalese. Monsanto spend 46 million dollars campaigning against this bill and only won by a sliver. The point is, I believe the majority of people would rather not eat products containing GMO, but they are not being represented and being put second to a huge corporation that has its hands in a lot of funny business (aka scary rear end poo poo, agent orange and hiring blackwater usa). There are many countries accross the world that have decided to ban GMO's from within their limits. Even Switzerland...where Novartis comes from. I think it's totally fishy poo poo, and I'm not alone. Scientists are unsure weather or not rBST milk can cause adverse reactions is humans..that doesn't mean it's not bad for human health. There have been studies that say both yay and nay. At the end of the day, you can always find a study or two that supports your argument. I want to say, though, that although I object to a lot going on in this genetic waltz, I am totally down for a lot of it, too! GM in medicine has done some totally bad rear end cool stuff, and changing the genes of pigs so they poo poo less phosphorous..or growing meat in-vitro is cool rear end poo poo.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:09
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Puddums posted:\The point is, I believe the majority of people would rather not eat products containing GMO I think if you required a label that says  CONTAINS DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE most people wouldn't want that in their products either.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:12
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Deteriorata posted:You also have to consider that the guys running Dow and Monsanto and DuPont and the others at the time were largely veterans of WWII. Supplying what their government asked for to fight a war would be an act of patriotic duty for them. They would not even think to ask what it was going to be used for. Yes, also much of the big ag structure and strategy also extends all the way back to Butz and the nutritional deficit, need for portable large scale food related to US involvement in WWII.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:21
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icantfindaname posted:Take your assertion that all research should be 100% public domain. Why wouldn't that apply to all scientific research? Do you think third world countries aren't harmed by licensing and copyright in the realm of industry and manufacturing? Why shouldn't all advances in that area be made public domain? As far as ways to make money in the third world go, selling genetically modified crops to farmers on terms that could possibly be more charitable isn't really the most horrifically evil thing in the world. All of that should be public domain absolutely. "Making money in the third world" is not something that occurs in a vacuum, its accompanied by and dependent upon certain material conditions that directly contribute to death and suffering. This happens to be backed up by the most powerful military that has ever existed. Cream_Filling posted:How on earth would they have known? The nominal purpose of Agent Orange was as a defoliant to remove air cover from the jungle. Which in and of itself is highly criminal and unnecesarily destructive, and done to enable to said virtual genocide. I don't think you stopped to think what kind of impact destroying enormous swathes of jungle has on the ecosystem even ignoring the presence of human life. The government had been devastating the region for some time by this point and you can safely assume that such contracts are going to at best passively contribute to enormous loss of human life. Deteriorata posted:You also have to consider that the guys running Dow and Monsanto and DuPont and the others at the time were largely veterans of WWII. Supplying what their government asked for to fight a war would be an act of patriotic duty for them. They would not even think to ask what it was going to be used for.  time but that probably doesn't seem like very good of an excuse for say, IBM enabling the systematic disposal of 6+ million human beings.icantfindaname posted:I was just trying to point out that the hysteria surrounding Monsanto is conspicuously absent from, say, literally every single other multinational that has an effect on third world development. Profit motive is a damned good way to ensure that as much evil is done as possible on the way to accomplishing whatever actions profit is providing motivation for. The whole global capitalism thing that keeps coming up IS the problem and not incidental in the least.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:22
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serewit posted:'bout 100%, I'd suspect. I really hate how mainstream 'liberal' websites give so much credence to both anti-vax, anti-GMO, and anti-nuke platforms (Lookin' at you, HuffPo). Even ThinkProgress has been running anti-GMO stuff. The local Murdoch press is pretty pro-vac though. How do we change people's minds? Because among the progressives I know almost everyone is anti-GMO, pro-organic, etc.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:26
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Count Chocula posted:Even ThinkProgress has been running anti-GMO stuff. The local Murdoch press is pretty pro-vac though. You don't need to change peoples minds just look at different people. Like the ones in Asia who aren't dying from malnutrition due to GM foods.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:35
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Puddums posted:I think it's mainly not having the right to choose that bothers people. And even if a product is labeled "GMO Free" there will always be companies which find a way around the claims. Gotta love legalese. Monsanto spend 46 million dollars campaigning against this bill and only won by a sliver. The point is, I believe the majority of people would rather not eat products containing GMO, but they are not being represented and being put second to a huge corporation that has its hands in a lot of funny business (aka scary rear end poo poo, agent orange and hiring blackwater usa). There are many countries accross the world that have decided to ban GMO's from within their limits. Even Switzerland...where Novartis comes from. I think it's totally fishy poo poo, and I'm not alone. These people are idiots, and we should be protected from their backwards notions and attempt to remove the choice from those of us who want better designed food. I don't give a gently caress about capitalism or communism. I just want a steak that's as nutritious as a carrot. But seriously I think that governments need to be able to override the will of the people when that will is so stupid, dangerous, and anti-scientific. First you ban GMOs. Then maybe you stop requiring kids to be vaccinated. You don't build mobile phone towers or WiFi antennas because people think they cause cancer (this has happened in at least one town). And soon we start sliding backwards. This sort of thing mostly comes from the Left, unlike stuff like Creationism, so the left needs to Stamp it out in our own communities and parties. The Australian Greens have passed a motion censuring an anti-vac group. We need more like that. Basically, I don't want the mob to prevent me from having access to the most advanced food available. There seems to be a huge philosophical difference: I see GMOs and genetic modification in all its forms as IMPROVING on corrupt, base nature while many see nature as PURE and GOOD, and view any deviation from it as corruption.
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Jul 4, 2013 23:39
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