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[Sergarr]

Why do people still talk about power levels so much when the important part of the whole narrative of Namek saga was that "Power levels are bullshit and don't tell the whole story"?

Because it helps to give a numeric standard to quantify a character's power and compare it to other character's power? Like mega-hitlers or something. Rather than just going "Goku is 5 Vegetas" or "Krillin isn't even 1/5 of a Mr Satan" or something, you have numbers to use.

But this is the entire thing of early Namek saga: there's no single "power" stat that can handily tell you who will win against whom. They don't count in techniques and skill, and those matter much more than just simple power level. There are a lot of special attacks that bypass your power level (Kienzan and Solar Flare, for one, but there was also Body Change). Like, if you go by the numbers, Krillin should not have been able to fight with 2nd form Frieza at all. But he not only managed to stall him without suffering any significant damage in the process, he also managed to cut off his tail.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason why they stopped using these techniques afterwards is because Akira Toriyama realized that if he continued in that direction, then the manga would stop being shonen.

And then he went back to the stupid "speed/power trumps everything" bullshit that continues to plague us to this day.

I wonder how would DBZ look like if there were more of the Kienzan/Solar Flare type techniques. Maybe a Sonic Flash, for creating a super-loud noise? Or Destructo Shield, as the ultimate hand-to-hand weapon?

[Aseaheru]

 For me, its not somuch the fact that its big corporations doing it, its how people from them(and from the USes department of dealing with GM foods) swap between the megacorporations and the departments in charge of regulating them, the fact that the few laws in place requiring testing have either been removed or have been circumvented by idiotic logic (like that a tomato is always a tomato, even when its half fish), that most GM crops are modified to allow gratuitous use of pesticides/herbicides that are shown to be not good for people, and the rather nasty things that the company does to people to piss it off in the slightest respect, such as owning equipment that allows farmers to take a crop and turn it into usable seed.

-Three ninjas later...-

[Putnam]

Why do people still talk about power levels so much when the important part of the whole narrative of Namek saga was that "Power levels are bullshit and don't tell the whole story"?

Because it helps to give a numeric standard to quantify a character's power and compare it to other character's power? Like mega-hitlers or something. Rather than just going "Goku is 5 Vegetas" or "Krillin isn't even 1/5 of a Mr Satan" or something, you have numbers to use.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason why they stopped using these techniques afterwards is because Akira Toriyama realized that if he continued in that direction, then the manga would stop being shonen.

And then he went back to the stupid "speed/power trumps everything" bullshit that continues to plague us to this day.

I wonder how would DBZ look like if there were more of the Kienzan/Solar Flare type techniques. Maybe a Sonic Flash, for creating a super-loud noise? Or Destructo Shield, as the ultimate hand-to-hand weapon?

I don't know, One Piece does pretty well with "creativity and skill trumps outright power" so far, and it's shonen.

that most GM crops are modified to allow gratuitous use of pesticides/herbicides that are shown to be not good for people

To be fair, organic farming is far worse in that respect. In fact, this is why I'm so confused about why the green party is so against GMOs; organic farming is really awful for the environment.

Actually, it's kind of weird how unintuitive that kind of thing is. Deforestation is bad, yes? What's the greatest cause of deforestation? Why, free-range cattle, of course! Factory farming saves the environment.

...okay i'm feeling like becoming a vegetarian now...

[Bohandas]

The main issue I have with GMO's is not with the stuff itself. It's the folks behind it which are completely greedy corporations with profits as their one and only goal and everything else being irrelevant.

And this is definitely both a strawman and an ad hominem attack and an association fallacy. The fact that Monsanto (and to a lesser extent many other corporations in their industry) is unambiguously evil and works with GMO technology - nor even the fact that they're likely to use it for evil - does not make necessarily make the technology itself evil.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, one of the big advantages to GMO's is that you can modify crops to be naturally resistant to some things, actually making them require less pesticides than normal (not to say that all GMO's are like this, but there are plenty that have gone this way and it's definitely one of the possibilities of GMO crops).

[Jopax]

Again, I don't consider the tech evil, I have no strong opinion on it honestly, it's a tool, and a good one at that. But what I do distrust is the people making and using that tool because they've shown little to no regard to the potential dangers of using said tool or using it in a wrong way.

[Radio Controlled]

As a biochem major who may or may not have had mutant Arabidopsis in his yard at some point, my stance is that genetically engineered crops hold good promise and potential, provided appropriate cautionary systems are installed and enforced. However, they are only part of the solution, not the one thing that'll solve it. There are other solutions that should be investigated, so that a maximal return is gotten.

And then everybody should become vegetarian Nope, not starting it again 

[Sergarr]

Why do people still talk about power levels so much when the important part of the whole narrative of Namek saga was that "Power levels are bullshit and don't tell the whole story"?

Because it helps to give a numeric standard to quantify a character's power and compare it to other character's power? Like mega-hitlers or something. Rather than just going "Goku is 5 Vegetas" or "Krillin isn't even 1/5 of a Mr Satan" or something, you have numbers to use.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason why they stopped using these techniques afterwards is because Akira Toriyama realized that if he continued in that direction, then the manga would stop being shonen.

And then he went back to the stupid "speed/power trumps everything" bullshit that continues to plague us to this day.

I wonder how would DBZ look like if there were more of the Kienzan/Solar Flare type techniques. Maybe a Sonic Flash, for creating a super-loud noise? Or Destructo Shield, as the ultimate hand-to-hand weapon?

I don't know, One Piece does pretty well with "creativity and skill trumps outright power" so far, and it's shonen.

Well I guess that the author of One Piece is a more skilled writer, then. The One Piece world is much bigger and better laid out than the Dragon Ball one, and there are much more meaningful supporting characters. The plot has less holes, too.

[scrdest]

As a biochem major...

My sympathies.

[Bauglir]

Corporation's best interest is to make money. They make money by making more productive crops. They make less money by creating a crop that kills everyone. Therefore they will try their hardest to make crops that are more productive and that have the least number of deaths.

This is actually what worries me about using markets to incentivize things. The problem is, there's no guarantee that the link between your first and second sentences is true. It leaves room for all sorts of clever Third Answers to bypass what's "supposed" to happen - for example, if Monsanto could get their corn to produce nicotine, and thought they could get away with it for a couple of years, they wouldn't exactly have an incentive not to make their crops highly addictive, thereby ensuring they get more money.

[Bohandas]

Corporation's best interest is to make money. They make money by making more productive crops. They make less money by creating a crop that kills everyone. Therefore they will try their hardest to make crops that are more productive and that have the least number of deaths.

This is actually what worries me about using markets to incentivize things. The problem is, there's no guarantee that the link between your first and second sentences is true. It leaves room for all sorts of clever Third Answers to bypass what's "supposed" to happen - for example, if Monsanto could get their corn to produce nicotine, and thought they could get away with it for a couple of years, they wouldn't exactly have an incentive not to make their crops highly addictive, thereby ensuring they get more money.

Like that one Simpsons episode with the Tomacco (a crossbreed of tomatoes and tobacco)

[Neonivek]

The issue I have with GMO is actually more that it gives Corperations an ensured monopoly.

Since one of the things they likely are already doing with GMO crops is giving them single generation lifespans.

---

It already stinks that it is tough enough to get good fruits and vegetables... given that right now they tend to modify them to grow big and quickly but don't account for taste.

[i2amroy]

This is actually what worries me about using markets to incentivize things. The problem is, there's no guarantee that the link between your first and second sentences is true. It leaves room for all sorts of clever Third Answers to bypass what's "supposed" to happen - for example, if Monsanto could get their corn to produce nicotine, and thought they could get away with it for a couple of years, they wouldn't exactly have an incentive not to make their crops highly addictive, thereby ensuring they get more money.

Yeah, but it's to catch those third answers that we have the legal system. You can bet that if they pulled out something like that they would be getting hit by enough lawsuits to cancel out any sort of gains that they'd make. It's one of those things that the people whose job it is to just look at overall legal costs are supposed to catch; that the costs a couple of years down the road are going to outweigh any sort of profit gain now. Additionally trying to pull a trick like that once essentially kills your company. Something serious kills any faith consumers might have not only in your company, but also in the entire field it operates in, so it's in your deep interests to ensure that neither you nor any of your direct competitors pull something serious like that off.

It's totally possible that someone could pull something like that off, and it would suck for anyone affected by it, but the end result is that anyone who does gets forced out or loses in the long run because they are hurting themselves in the long term more than they are benefiting in the short one. There's no way that harming your customer base helps you, so it's in your best interest to always avoid or minimize that when possible.

Note: I'm not saying that they can't hurt people, or that they won't. I'm saying that the force of the market means that statistically, in the long run, the good from any developments will always have to outweigh the bad, or the developments will be destroyed by the market. That's not saying I don't agree with the idea of stricter oversight or similar things, I'm just making a statement that the force of the market is something you can count on in a statistical fashion to protect the consumers from the producers as a whole.

[Bohandas]

The issue I have with GMO is actually more that it gives Corperations an ensured monopoly.

Since one of the things they likely are already doing with GMO crops is giving them single generation lifespans.

The technology has been used for evil, but that doesn[t make it inherently evil.

Also, my understanding was that that technology wasn't being actively used even by monsanto because they found it to be more profitable to make plants with viable seeds so that they can abuse patent law to sue people who replant them, thus providing the company with additional income.

[Orange Wizard]

It wouldn't a problem if your government didn't put so much power in the hands of big corporations.