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[Playergamer]

This is why I stopped eating food when Soylent came out. Also because it's more convenient, but eh.

[Loud Whispers]

Ended up seeing a cracked article about odd additives in everyday foods while doing a quick google search to try to find something to mod into Cataclysm made of bones.  (Ya know because you end up with hundreds of the things and making broth with them wastes an hour)

http://www.cracked.com/article_15982_5-horrifying-food-additives-youve-probably-eaten-today.html

Yes it's one of those articles.   My WTF though isn't what the stuff is made of though, it's that people consider this stuff shocking and disgusting.  Especially that last one, I'm sure there's a lot worse stuff on your food than an antibacterial virus on your lunch meat.

I was quite entertained by the warning label that said: "MAY CONTAIN GENETICALLY MODIFIED BACTERIA" in my food. I've kept that label to this day, to show my grandchildren of the evil hubris mankind stepped up to before our decadence resulted in the apocalypse.

[Playergamer]

I've always quietly wondered about why people hate GMO food. I mean, we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years, it's just that now we do it in a lab instead of a field. And, yes, GMO might be more dangerous/usable for evil (MONSANTOOOOO!!!) but then again, it doesn't have to be. Just let people work on it, and don't accuse them of murdering babies while they do it.

[Samario]

Tried to think of a triangle where one of the angles was i degrees.
My head hurt.
(also, negative degrees)

[Loud Whispers]

I've always quietly wondered about why people hate GMO food. I mean, we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years, it's just that now we do it in a lab instead of a field. And, yes, GMO might be more dangerous/usable for evil (MONSANTOOOOO!!!) but then again, it doesn't have to be. Just let people work on it, and don't accuse them of murdering babies while they do it.

1. GMO genes leak into the biosphere of the rest of the world through viral vectors and other such things.
2. Sometimes no one fully understands the consequences of what changing the genes may do, for better and for worse; these consequences can become permanent facets of daily life due to MONSANTOOOOOOOOOO or the aforementioned genes escaping into the rest of the world.
3. Alternatives are available, yet the GMO lobby wants to strangle out all competition in things like gene-marker assisted selective breeding (again, MONSANTOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

[Helgoland]

-What alternatives?
-Has any such escape been reported? If so, what's so bad about that?

[Arx]

The GMO cross-breeding escape happens all the time. What's so bad about it is that Monsanto can then sue the poor sucker who caught the leaks. It's how they've got to control a scary fraction of the world's food supply.

[Sergarr]

Tried to think of a triangle where one of the angles was i degrees.
My head hurt.
(also, negative degrees)

i degrees is basically 180/pi degrees seeing as e^pi = -1

[Helgoland]

The GMO cross-breeding escape happens all the time. What's so bad about it is that Monsanto can then sue the poor sucker who caught the leaks. It's how they've got to control a scary fraction of the world's food supply.

That's intra-species gene transfer, and a legal issue. More of a problem would be inter-species gene transfer, and that's something I'd like to know more about.

[Arx]

inter-species gene transfer

Elaborate? Now I'm curious too.

[scrdest]

-What alternatives?
-Has any such escape been reported? If so, what's so bad about that?

Like LW said, you have viral gene transduction, and should the population grow large enough (which it almost certainly would, unless you specifically introduced a vulnerability that would SOMEHOW not get mutated out almost immediately) the likelihood of the gene making its way to another species would be pretty high.

Now, in many, many cases that might not have been an issue, but with things like the 'edible vaccines' thing or other biosynthesized medical products, you would run the risk of having animals or humans eating it and getting a drug into their system, with stuff like accidental overdoses or drug interactions possibly happening, and it would be a massive bitch to stamp out if it did get out. Which is why everyone is SOOUPER CARFUL with the stuff in Europe, at least.

Arx - unless we're talking about two separate instances, this specific case was distorted to hell and back so much they actually had to get a revolving door. The notable case, which is what I'm thinking about, was actually a farmer who bought GM crops, harvested the seeds, sold them, then, ON PURPOSE, bought them from a place that wasn't supposed to sell seeds to him and killed off all except those that had the gene, then kept doing that for five years.

[10ebbor10]

inter-species gene transfer

Elaborate? Now I'm curious too.

Virus inserts itself in species A, accidentally takes a bunch of Dna with it when reproducing. Virus then inserts itself in species B, and leaves the DNA behind. IIRC, large parts of our Dna have viral origins.

On a side note, many people fail to explain why interspecies Dna transfer is a bad thing, even with GMO plants. It's not like GMO Dna is inherently evil or something.

The only legitimate concern is that they implant resistance to one specific occurrence of pesticide so as to be able to weed out the plants where the Dna transfer didn't succeed.

The GMO cross-breeding escape happens all the time. What's so bad about it is that Monsanto can then sue the poor sucker who caught the leaks. It's how they've got to control a scary fraction of the world's food supply.

Find me a source for that.

I only know one such occurrence, and that was when the "poor sucker" deliberatly bought the pesticide they use to separate GMO and non GMO plants. Sprayed them on his fields to separate GMO and non GMO, and clearly intended to use GMO plants further on.

Not that I like Monsanto or anything, but there's a lot of nonsense in the debate.

Now, in many, many cases that might not have been an issue, but with things like the 'edible vaccines' thing or other biosynthesized medical products, you would run the risk of having animals or humans eating it and getting a drug into their system, with stuff like accidental overdoses or drug interactions possibly happening, and it would be a massive bitch to stamp out if it did get out. Which is why everyone is SOOUPER CARFUL with the stuff in Europe, at least.

Why would you even release these plants or bacteria in to the wild?  These stay in labs, and generally aren't relevant to the debate about GMO food crops. Hell, I'm pretty sure they fall under a different regulation.

Most of the European carefulness is based on the fact that pesticide resistances are used to separate GMO and non-GMO plants. (Also the fact that GMO plants are sometimes engineered to make pesticides, which could result in immunity amongst pests.)

[Loud Whispers]

-What alternatives?
-Has any such escape been reported? If so, what's so bad about that?

-Marker gene assisted selection, identifying genes or genetic markers associated with desired traits and using them as breeding stock to improve stock without GM, whilst bypassing all the costs and difficulties of conventional artificial selection.
-Many, from Monsanto wheat in Oregon, Germany still trying to clean up the mess from illegally imported triffid flax to transgenic canola in North Dakota. We have no idea what the full extent of the GM does and we know even less about how it will impact biodiversity in the wild [one of the principle concerns with GM is that it does not leak into the wild, something that has likely already been happening for the past 20 so odd years]. Arx mentioned the whole legal loopholes things and all that, but Monsanto's monopolization is a short term and very human concern; because little research is done on the environmental impact which has a much greater impact on us and the planet and if most executive concerns are economical, is anyone surprised when it fucks up the environment?
And has been mentioned, GMO cross-breeding happens all the time, making it an incredibly big damn problem. Think of it like how European honeybees are introduced to countries to increase crop yields; a noble endeavour, but escapes will happen, and they will usually kill off most of the natives and thereby create a domino effect of extinction. GM is a very precise tool that if used bluntly will cause more problems than it solves. The GM issue has become muddied somewhat by the sleuth of Luddites who would oppose GM much in the same way they would oppose vaccines, opposing out of fear because they do not understand it. I oppose GM because I understand no one fully understands GM crops, and beneath the sea of hack doom mongers you mustn't forget there is legitimate opposition.

Also Monsanto is evil.

[Tellemurius]

I swear to god any of you start a Proto-Culture Thesis I'll murder you.

[10ebbor10]

Snip

Nope, you don't oppose GMO's. You oppose the modern Industrial-Agricultural complex.

There's a difference between a technology and how it is used.