GMO's: yay or nay? -

[Watermelanin]

Let me start with what I think is a sufficiently comprehensive list of the kinds of GMO crops out there:

Pesticide resistance:
They're made precisely to allow pesticides to be sprayed on crops that would otherwise be killed by their use. (It should be noted that the USDA mandates that no food crop may have more than 1/1000th the amount of any added pesticide which has been shown to cause any negative health effects per serving when it reaches the market).
Innately pesticidal:
The pesticide is in the crop. Specifically this applies to "bt crops" which are designed to produce a toxin that kills insects yet reportedly has no notable effects on human health.
Longer shelf life:
These are designed to take longer to spoil, usually by deactivating genes involved in the spoiling process.
Improved nutritional content:
Produced with the intent of being healthier for human consumption.
Vaccine producing crops:
As the name implies, some crops (most notably tobacco) have been designed with the explicit goal of reliably mass producing vaccines.
[There may be more categories I haven't thought of. Will edit OP if others are mentioned].

With all this in mind: are these crops good? Bad? Somewhere in between? Are some categories good and others literally the devil?
Personally, I support GMO production. Each and every category listed has its place in maintaining a sustainable food supply (or use in its niche application). This technology has historically been successful in making cheaper food that is safer to eat. Furthermore: biotech companies have zero incentive to make their customers unhealthy and every incentive to keep their customers alive and healthy enough to keep buying their cheap ass food.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

IMO the single biggest problem of GMOs is how Big Ag treats them as a service rather than a product.

"Uh oh Farmer Ted, you had some remaining seed which you haven't found and didn't destroy?"
"Uh oh Farmer Jacques, the wind blew away some seed, so your crops spread a bit out of the boundaries we set in the contract?"
Any of these and more is a breach of contract, and usually results in the farmer getting fucked by a megacorp.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

Genetic modification has always been a staple of human history. Dogs descended from wolves, and each dog breed was created by selecting certain traits desired by the breeder at the time. Sheep used to be significantly smaller as little as 500 years ago. Crops have been selectively bred to produce bigger crops, be more resistant to bugs, and survive on fewer resources than nature usually allows for. It's natural selection, but performed and streamlined by humans.

 

[Watermelanin]

IMO the single biggest problem of GMOs is how Big Ag treats them as a service rather than a product.

"Uh oh Farmer Ted, you had some remaining seed which you haven't found and didn't destroy?"
"Uh oh Farmer Jacques, the wind blew away some seed, so your crops spread a bit out of the boundaries we set in the contract?"
Any of these and more is a breach of contract, and usually results in the farmer getting fucked by a megacorp.

The minor problem with that whole argument is it's largely a load of bullshit. Non-GMO, conventionally bred, crops are often subject to the same patent laws. People don't get sued if their fields are contaminated with drifting GM crops unless they knowingly replant them. And farmers aren't sued when their crops do drift. That's just another organic industry funded talking point founded primarily on bullshit.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

IMO the single biggest problem of GMOs is how Big Ag treats them as a service rather than a product.

"Uh oh Farmer Ted, you had some remaining seed which you haven't found and didn't destroy?"
"Uh oh Farmer Jacques, the wind blew away some seed, so your crops spread a bit out of the boundaries we set in the contract?"
Any of these and more is a breach of contract, and usually results in the farmer getting fucked by a megacorp.

Monsanto is straight up evil with that.

As far as GMOs go...I don't really know. Glyphosate has weird physiological effects, but I can't imagine people would be eating enough of it to be affected.

 

[Watermelanin]

Genetic modification has always been a staple of human history. Dogs descended from wolves, and each dog breed was created by selecting certain traits desired by the breeder at the time. Sheep used to be significantly smaller as little as 500 years ago. Crops have been selectively bred to produce bigger crops, be more resistant to bugs, and survive on fewer resources than nature usually allows for. It's natural selection, but performed and streamlined by humans.

For the sake of this discussion, I'd prefer to exclude "selective breeding" as a form of genetic modification. That's an ancient and not particularly contentious mode of crop modification. I would add that those are eligible for "USDA organic" status but so are mutagenic crops which are basically produced by blasting seeds with radiation and keeping whatever mutations happen to work out and I would personally argue that those are genetically modified. But it's all A-OK and totally organic so long as you aren't targeting exactly which genes you intend to modify, right?

 

[Kamikaze]

Given that the digestive system is quite efficient at breaking everything down to constituent particles, I've never understood the scare-mongering over GMOs. If they wanted to poison you, there's surely easier means to do so then through GMOs. Glad to see this thread is not taking that route, looking forward to learning something.

For the sake of this discussion, I'd prefer to exclude "selective breeding" as a form of genetic modification.

Agree, but it is worth mentioning for context. AFAIK no modern crop resembles the wild plants we originally cultivated.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

The minor problem with that whole argument is it's largely a load of bullshit. Non-GMO, conventionally bred, crops are often subject to the same patent laws. People don't get sued if their fields are contaminated with drifting GM crops unless they knowingly replant them. And farmers aren't sued when their crops do drift. That's just another organic industry funded talking point founded primarily on bullshit.

Yes, Big Organic is also full of bullshit, and I trust them about as much as Monsanto, who seems to be bankrolling this GLP.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Almost everything we eat is a "generically modified organism" due to agriculture, the modern method is just the next step of something humans have always done.

Anyone that thinks there's something inherently harmful to a "GMO" is an idiot.

It's literally the very nature of genes that they change and evolve, it isn't a static thing.

 

[The Spice boi]

Thats a complicated question.

From a health standpoint, GMOs are harmless. More people are poisoned or injured by makeup annually than GMOs. Genetic engineering is what we've been doing for thousands of years, GMO is just cutting out the time amd bullshit.

From an ecological standpoint, we can't predict what a crop that takes hold outside of a controlled environment will do to an ecosystem. It could wipe out habitats and cost billions of dollars in damages, and could be nigh indestructible when attacked with conventional herbicides.

There's also how much of a stranglehold corporations have on the market. Buy our GMOs, or market as organic, have a couple of bad yields and go out of business. Suck shit, courtesy of the GMO industry.

It's complicated, like everything else

 

[Zvantastika]

From an ecological standpoint, we can't predict what a crop that takes hold outside of a controlled environment will do to an ecosystem. It could wipe out habitats and cost billions of dollars in damages, and could be nigh indestructible when attacked with conventional herbicides.

There's also how much of a stranglehold corporations have on the market. Buy our GMOs, or market as organic, have a couple of bad yields and go out of business. Suck shit, courtesy of the GMO industry.

It's complicated, like everything else

Current farming practices already fuck the ecosystem in unpredicted ways tho. Only difference is that if we use GMOs we have a higher possibility of having better crops than regular farming, meaning we'll need less area to plant crops in the long run due to higher production efficiency, so even that potential ecosystem impact is lessen by using GMOs instead of just keeping traditional farm tecniques.

As for corporate takeover, that can be applied to anything, companies ruin everything because that's what they do, profit and fuck over people. But once again, at least this time the probability of a better harvest is higher than traditional means and I can certainly live with that.

This whole thing can be put into perspective by listing its advantages and disadvantages, sure it's a complicated matter but if the core issue GMOs are trying to tackle is making crops that have a higher possibility of yielding a better and more productive harvest, I would still be willing to give them a try over the old ways that are just as destructive and less efficient.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with GMOs. My parents on the other hand have totally bought into the organic bs, along with psychic chakra vibration nonsense. I get nagged constantly about food I buy and how gmos are "dead food" according to mom's favorite facebook medium. Also lots of complaining about how microwaving and pasteurization "kills" nutrients and how pasteurized milk has "synthetic" vitamin d and is extra bad

 

[salvuserit]

Outside of selective breeding, genetically modifying foodstuffs seems like a bad idea. The potential for unforseen harm is there as well as the almost-certain abuse of power from groups with the technology.

 

[Massa's Little Buckie]

I have no problems with it.

 

[Dimetrodon]

The hatred of GMOs, especially by certain sects of the left, seems to stem from the justified distrust of large corporations. The problem is that if you want to make a good argument against the unethical practices of globalist corporations, you have to be precise. Not everything that big business does is bad, especially since most of us use and enjoy their products daily. Instead, your anti-GMO people, much like anti-vaxxers, dismiss all of it as just being pure shit.

Of course, a large segment of the people in the anti-GMO camp probably just go along with it because the people around them do; it takes more effort to research and understand modern agricultural practices than to sit around on Facebook all day.

 

[Homo Demens]

It's a yay. Let me eat my super berries in peace for fuck sake.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The hatred of GMOs, especially by certain sects of the left, seems to stem from the justified distrust of large corporations.

I don't think so. The hatred of GMO's by the left can be divided into two groups:

• Idiots who believe and faith healing and "if it's unnatural it's bad for you".
• People who know GMO's can solve a lot of problems that they directly benefit from existing (if starvation isn't an issue anymore who will donate to our UN task force?).

 

[d12]

I support GMOs, I don't support nine or ten agricorporations holding all the patents to GMOs.

 

[Acrid Alchemist]

I want my corn to glow in the dark and my potatoes to be the size of watermelons.

Seriously though we wouldn't have pets or common foods like bananas without what amounts to genetic manipulation. There is nothing wrong with giving nature a nudge to speed up the process. Plus if we have more efficient crops we'll destroy less land to get larger quantities.

 

[TFT-A9]

Almost everything we eat is a "generically modified organism" due to agriculture, the modern method is just the next step of something humans have always done.

Anyone that thinks there's something inherently harmful to a "GMO" is an idiot.

It's literally the very nature of genes that they change and evolve, it isn't a static thing.

Do you like vegetables? Pretty much every commonly-consumed vegetable has been genetically modified for CENTURIES. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages - all genetically modified variants of Brassica mustard plants.

Do you like bread and beer? Guess what, just about every grain we use is GMO.

Do you like meat? Guess what I'm about to tell you. That's right, anything that you didn't go out into the wilderness and shoot yourself is likely genetically modified.

"MUH FRANKENFOOD!" Motherfucker "frankenfood" describes some of the finest, tastiest stuff out there today. You want to eat like fucking cavemen, you go out and have fun foraging for wild berries and mushrooms (and watch out for the poisonous shit, if you even know what to look for - if you're complaining about frankenfood I'd wager there's a 95 percent chance you don't) and killing wild animals (enjoy your exotic diseases and parasites).

Exhibit A in the case for "frankenfood" being fucking amazing:

The Boysenberry. These things are goddamned ambrosia.