Is it necessarily a good thing to feed everyone?

@roger,

What is sad is that Maxadonca has a bug up his ass to steer the thread it in a direction where you can thumb his nose at whole foods, as if anyone else gives a f*ck. That's not what the question is about, but he'd have to get his remaining three neurons to cooperate to understand that.

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@Banana Breath,

I don't know what direction you expected this thread to go in. The titular question is ridiculous-- of course feeding everyone is a good thing. And, the premises in your first post are equally absurd (as I pointed out).

Agriculture is technology. For thousands of years humans have been changing nature and creating plants and animals that never would have existed without human invention. Many of these plants and animals can't even survive or reproduce without human interference. Overall the technological advancements over thousands of years have been very beneficial. We now live longer healthier lives than ever in history.

That really is the point, isn't it.

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@Banana Breath,

Is this chart for Celiac disease for the United States only or worldwide?

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@CalamityJane,

You do realize that is a bogus chart, right CalamityJane?

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@maxdancona,

Max, you inbred weenie, only a Monsanto shill calls all of science "bogus." You call evolution bogus, you call climate change bogus, you call fears of plutonium, DDT, Agent Orange, or any other chemicals bogus, as long as you can possibily make a buck by doing so.

But this chart is cited by the National Institutes of Health of the US government, within the US National Library of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/
It's funny how I keep providing excellent peer-reviewed citations for my information and you provide nothing but yadda yadda yadda. Do you need help extracting your head from your ass? I'm sure we can locate a specialist for you.

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@Banana Breath,

"Do you need help extracting your head from your ass? I'm sure we can locate a specialist for you."

A midwife, perhaps?

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@Banana Breath,

Quote:

You call evolution bogus, you call climate change bogus, you call fears of plutonium, DDT, Agent Orange, or any other chemicals bogus

No I don't. I have never called evolution bogus. Nor have I called climate change bogus, nor fears of plutonium nor Agent Orange. I would like to see what I have posted anywhere that gave you that idea (or did you just make it up).

There is a difference between science and pseudo-science. Evolution is science. Climate Change is science. Science is based on facts and experiments and data peer-reviewed research to reach a consensus among experts.

Bogus claims of a link between celiac disease and GM food is pseudo-science. There is one crazy guy who made this claim. The scientific community has looked into it and rejected it.

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@Banana Breath,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-haspel/condemning-monsanto-with-_b_3162694.html

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@maxdancona,

Yadda Yadda, you quote Huff post light articles by brethren Monsanto shills, and I quote peer-reviewed articles from US Government health websites. Is there a difference? yes. Are you cognizant of the differences? Obviously not. Is that the topic of this question? Nope, not by a long shot. Is your head still up your ass? Yes indeed.

Imagine you're an airhead (wow, that's a stretch) who feeds all the pigeons in NYC. Well fed, they reproduce. 1 million becomes 10 million which becomes 100 million. Is the only problem figuring out ways to get enough food to thes pigeons? If you keep feeding them and innovating to feed any more, will you EVER see a problem in that course? Probably not, because of said head being so firmly lodged within said posterior.

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@Banana Breath,

I don't mind having a reasoned discussion with a rational person. The vulgar personal attacks don't help you argument very much.

You quoted me one widely discredited article that was referenced once on a US government website (as many articles are). I am giving you the general consensus of the scientific community. The scientific community in general sees no significant risk in genetically modified food. This debate is very much like the vaccination debate, where you have a small group of very loud deniers speaking over the general scientific community.

Childish insults against anyone who points this out don't change this fact.

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@maxdancona,

"Widely discredited" is not accomplished when a couple paid Monsanto shills complain. "Widely discredited" happens when the legit peer reviewed sites remove the article from their sites. And another of your bogus denials about science regards population; contrary to your head in the sand position, population continues to rise dramatically. The fact that some family planning efforts have been made in China and India have slowed the growth but it continues to rise dramatically. And here's a chart produced by National Geographic and the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, which you will no doubt also want to dismiss because you prefer to get your world view nonsense from humor sites.

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@Banana Breath,

I agree with you about population growth. However, there are reasonable ways to address it. Simple development projects are the best way to control population growth. There is a strong correlation between the woman's literacy rate and the birth rate, investing in woman's literacy is a obvious reasonable response and an effective one.

The graph you posted is actually a hopeful one. I am not sure how much math you have studied. Do you notice the shape of that graph? It is curving in the right direction (that graph shows the rate of population growth decrease each year).

Of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't invest much more in development projects that are both humane and effective at controlling population growth rates.

I don't know if you are really suggesting that we should let people starve as a way to control population growth. I don't think that is reasonable.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

2) Humans have depended on genetically modified crops and chemical fertilizers since the dawn of agriculture (thousands of years ago).

Neil deGrasse Tyson makes the same argument, and it's annoying coming from either of you. It's all a question of the degree to which genes are altered. Something may fine in small degree but harmful when consumed in large quantities. Imagine if Banana Man expressed alarm at having recently gained 300 pounds, and you consoled him by telling him you yourself had gained 3 pounds last week. It's not the same thing!

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't know if you are really suggesting that we should let people starve as a way to control population growth. I don't think that is reasonable.

And it would backfire. People in the Third World have more children because they're worried about food security in old age.

"Half a dozen healthy kids" is their retirement policy.

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@Kolyo,

Thank you Kolyo. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is pretty cool (and damned intelligent). I don't at all mind being associated with him.

Tyson is right, there is no scientific reason to fear this technological advancement any more than we feared the previous ones. This is just another method of increasing productivity... the goal of agriculture since the dawn of civilization.

I think the degree argument is wrong. The genetic difference between corn and the naturally occurring grass that it came from is vast. You wouldn't even recognize the original plant as corn. The time frame that this change happened was much longer than what we can do in the lab now, but the degree isn't. The only difference is that we are making these changes faster. And, have you seen chickens lately?

There is no scientific reason to think that these new genetic changes will be any more dangerous than the development of corn. They just happen faster.

Neil Degrasse Tyson wrote:

“I’m amazed how much rejection genetically modified foods are receiving from the public. It smacks of the fear factor that exists at every new emergent science.”

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

There is no scientific reason to think that these new genetic changes will be any more dangerous than the development of corn.

The dominance of corn (maize) and its derivatives in out food supply, to the exclusion of everything else, has done much to drive the obesity epidemic. And you're right: giant agrobusinesses didn't require gene splicing to make that happen. The only difference that will come with gene therapy is that now those nearsighted capitalists who only care about mass production (rather than about nutrition) will be able to **** up our food that much faster.

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@Banana Breath,

Banana Breath wrote:

What is sad is that Maxadonca has a bug up his ass to steer the thread...

That's not what the question is about, but he'd have to get his remaining three neurons to cooperate to understand that.

Just a heads up, Banana: I'm adding you to my "Follow" list, but it's despite language like this, not because of it.

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@Kolyo,

Quote:

The dominance of corn (maize) and its derivatives in out food supply, to the exclusion of everything else, has done much to drive the obesity epidemic. And you're right: giant agrobusinesses didn't require gene splicing to make that happen.

What are you talking about? Agrobusinesses didn't genetically engineer corn from a species of ancient grass.. You are blaming the wrong people.

It was Olmec and the Mayans, ancient people of Mesoamerica who did the genetic manipulation to develop corn. If you want to blame someone, blame them (although you may be a little late).

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If only it were as simple as agribusiness wants to convince you of, that if you merely "grow more corn," the world's problems go away.

In addition to the obesity thing... the reliance on the "grow more corn" strategy is setting up the USA for another dust bowl, as the Midwest once again finds every patch of buffer (trees, wild grasses) plowed to grow more corn, which helped lead to the Dust Bowl of the 1930's. Making matters worse, they continually dig deeper and deeper wells, exhausting the Ogalala aquifer as they go. The entire aquifer is projected to be exhausted within our lifetimes.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/last-drop-americas-breadbasket-faces-dire-water-crisis-n146836

This, coupled with widespread drought in California could set up the USA to move from a net surplus to a net deficit to feed its own population within the next 20 years, and this country is doing far better than most, food-wise.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

There is a strong correlation between the woman's literacy rate and the birth rate, investing in woman's literacy is a obvious reasonable response and an effective one.

The graph you posted is actually a hopeful one. I am not sure how much math you have studied. Do you notice the shape of that graph? It is curving in the right direction (that graph shows the rate of population growth decrease each year).

In all likelihood I've studied quite a bit more math than you ever have or will and worked for a while as an editor with a leading math publisher. If you're easily misled by second derivative curves I can understand your misplaced enthusiasm, however the most AGGRESSIVE public birth control experiment ever on the face of the planet, China's one child policy, in place since 1979, coupled with dramatic increases in SES there and literacy at 95.1% haven't reversed their population growth. Quite to the contrary it continues to expand dramatically according to their own Chinese Bureau of Statistics. Given that they reached a population of 1 Billion in July of 1980, their population has grown by 36% since then WITH aggressively enforced birth control and high literacy.

1 Reply

Is it necessarily a good thing to feed everyone?

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