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[BlackFlyme]

This pelican yawning.

[Arx]

Danger of unknown unknowns, and of going ahead with a technology that might have unforeseen (and potentially drastic) consequences. Though how much of that is justifying a knee-jerk fright reaction is hard to say. Other reasons as well, but these do seem somewhat reasonable (then again, it's impossible to prove that a tech is % safe and foolproof).

I understand that, but it just doesn't make sense to me that it should spawn all this "OMG GMOz are teh evulz!one!".

Maybe it's just that it's late and I'm way too tired for this.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[TD1]

It's weird how many people seem to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the whole genetic engineering thing. Trying to find neutral sources on it is proving challenging.

I can't even think of many particularly good reasons to be so against it, other than possibly the things-man-was-not-meant-to-wot-of factor. There are some, but... not that many.

I suppose they see it as the start of a slippery slope. One day, we are...I dunno, making mice with ears. The next, genetically engineering fighter castes, breeding castes, worker castes...etc, for humanity.

True, I think some restraint is of course needed. But I think genetic engineering has many answers in it yet which could prove beneficial to us,

[Putnam]

I think that's actually a good part of it. People using fiction as evidence.

It happens way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way more often than it should.

Also, GMOs are not some unknown thing that hasn't had much research done into them. There's a shitload of research done into them. They're overwhelmingly likely to be safe.

Genetic engineering is already to the point that banning GMOs altogether might result in millions of deaths by starvation etc.. Not good.

I think we also get our insulin from genetically modified bacteria?

[GiglameshDespair]

First comes wheat... then comes UltraHitler! Slippery slope!

[Frumple]

... considering we have been doing genetic engineering more or less since before we had the freaking written word, methinks current complaints are more kneejerk than anything. Far more kneejerk than anything.

[Spehss _]

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.

[Arx]

I think we also get our insulin from genetically modified bacteria?

And most of our cheese.

I'm glad people seem to mostly agree with me, and I'm not just quietly going insane.

Edit:

This is because weeds become resistant to pesticides, leading farmers to spray even more on their crops.

* Arx drops face on keyboard.

[Jopax]

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. That kinda makes you careful because there's always a chance that something is wrong or has the potential to go wrong but they just used their giant money broom to sweep it under the rug.

[Neonivek]

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.

Even the creator LOATHES that he ever introduced power levels into the series. It is why he never reintroduces it back into the series.

But one of the major reasons why it means so little is that really... it is like seeing how powerful an engine is by how much fuel it has in the tank

[i2amroy]

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. That kinda makes you careful because there's always a chance that something is wrong or has the potential to go wrong but they just used their giant money broom to sweep it under the rug.

Funnily enough this is one of the exact reasons why I'm trusting of GMO foods. 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.

Also testing cycles are a thing. You don't just tweak genes and then go "hey, that looks like it might work, lets make a million of them and release them onto the market!" If only because if you accidentally make something less productive than normal it'll screw over your reputation.

(That said I think the idea of being able to "patent" a self-reproducing thing is kinda BS combined with the idiocy that is the current patent laws [sure, you can hold that patent for 200 years, no big deal!] is kinda stupid. Things like this should have rather short lived patents but get government subsidies on any research done. Company gets money, people get more food, everybody wins.)

[Bohandas]

Have you seen Jurassic Park? That's what happens when you mess with DNA. Do you want that?

The striking thing about Jurassic Park is that even from an in-universe perspective blaming the park's issues on genetic engineering is a bit of a strawman. The park's main issues were poor design (and insufficient background checks on it's employees as well; but mostly poor design).


A similar incident could just as easily occur with wolves or tigers. It's not intrinsically different from the 2007 San Francisco Zoo tiger attacks

[Dutchling]

As far as messing with DNA goes, Jurassic Park just show how awesome it is.

[Lord Shonus]

My phone updated, and somhow switched the keyboard language (used for determining autocorrect) to Spanish, which somehow resulted in a text message I sent becoming "ebay yo google yahoo".