March against Monsanto

[pman42]

today was the worldwide march against Monsanto. What do people think of this company and GMOs in general?

my own view, after reading and listening to the best articulated points of view from both sides, is somewhere in between. First of all, I don't buy the marketing spin that GMOs are going to feed the world's starving poor. this is about control of the supply chain, plain and simple. Monsanto wants to take control and push out the old product much like DuPont did when synthetic fabrics pushed out hemp. I recognize the need for higher yielding crops but I'm not so sure that GMOs are the solution. better would be biodynamic agriculture which rotates crops and has mixed crop/livestock on the same area so that all products go back into the system to re-enrich the soil and food. but i recognize that this is also probably not going to happen or might not be realistic on a global scale. I buy approximately 90% organic (I can go see the cows that are walking around with my steak in them) but I'm not a luddite. in fact, I think that as our population continues to grow, GMOs will become a viable option, perhaps the only option (the rest of the world is rushing to emulate north america's consumerist lifestyle with potentially calamitous results). but they shouldn't be delivered by companies with massive monopolies. it seems that science should be for the good of mankind but usually ends up being for the good of a company's bottom line. i also support genetic modification of people. as we get sicker and sicker as a species, we will need to selectively alter our genome to ensure continued survival. i see truly the worst examples of "natural" selection walking around, and too often these are the people who breed the most and will pass onto the next generation all the damage they have done to their bodies.

end of rant. i'll go back to lining my walls with tinfoil now

[Jelisej]

There is that proverb: "I am not rich enough to buy cheap things!" IMO it could apply to GMO food as well- there is tomato from my mums garden which is not being grown anymore as it is more expensive to grow, on other hand it has much more vitamins and minerals than GMO tomato- so in other hand its not really more expensive it just yields less profit for persons/company growing it.
Unfortunately- there were some research by some European organisation and they said that even organic is not what its ment to be. So if you are not farmer- you are screwed, its as simply as that.

I beleive that USA itself has enough fertile land to feed half of the world, nevermind USA alone. Here in Europe they have practice to throw tons of crops into the sea- to maintain stabile market prices.

So why we have a GMO food? I may be wrong but- I think its pure greed. Cut the expenses- increase profit.

Recently UN issued statement in which they encourage people from poorer countries to eat bugs and insects...
One day they will tell to us poorer folks that eating cows dung is good for us,
well- there must be some minerals in there...

[DJM]

not a fan, imo its pandora's box

[Rodja]

If only it wasn't a waste of time since Monsanto and the USDA are essentially the same entity.

[Cdsnuts]

as we get sicker and sicker as a species, we will need to selectively alter our genome to ensure continued survival. i see truly the worst examples of "natural" selection walking around, and too often these are the people who breed the most and will pass onto the next generation all the damage they have done to their bodies.

end of rant. i'll go back to lining my walls with tinfoil now

The only reason we are getting sicker and sicker as a species is, for the most part, from shitty lifestyle choices and nothing else. You put shit food and toxic chemicals into your machine, your gonna get a shitty running machine, bottom line. People continually and habitually input bad information into their systems in the form of processed food and chemicals. What people don't realize is that our bodies actually "read" the information from the food we eat. Right down to the cellular level. When you eat whole, fresh, natural foods, our bodies take that genetic information and incorporate it into our cells for processing. The result is a healthy system that "does what it's told." When you continually eat frankenfood stuffs where the "code" is produced by man, the body, again, is just doing what it's told. The result is sickness, disease and chronic conditions. This is what makes GMO's so dangerous. They have no idea what playing with this code is going to do to the whole line of genetic material. Altering one set of genes inexplicably changes another. Everything is connected. Nothing in nature works in a vacuum. So they might make corn that doesn't fold under a toxic onslaught of pesticides, but they have no idea what is waiting on the other end of that change. It's all give and take. This is what they want us to believe is safe. They have absolutely no clue whether it's safe or not.

We are no where near advanced enough to think we can mess with nature in that way. There's way too many genes and way too many connections. This experiment is going to be a huge shit show. A disaster waiting to happen.

[olddawg]

joining this party late, but this last and pman's post you guys mention that we are getting more sick as a species, aren't we living longer than ever? we are curing and livingwith/managing diseases that killed masses only 100 years ago.

[O_RYAN_007]

I hate the company, and everything it does. GMOs should not consumed, period!

[Cobalt]

I like food.

[pman42]

cdsnuts, i didn't mean to imply that we are getting sicker for no reason. the BIG reason people are getting sick is what they do and don't do: eat too much of the wrong stuff and don't exercise. i don't see this pattern changing. people are too entrenched in their shitty, lazy, gluttonous lifestyles. this is why i think we will need to alter the genome.

and old dawg, people are indeed living longer, but in many cases they are barely living. is this really a life, being afflicted with a chronic, debilitating illness? before, cavemen were killed by spears or wooly mammoths. then early in our civilization it was childbirth and communicable diseases. now it's diseases that we inflict upon ourselves that are the major killers. even the conservative estimates say cancer and heart disease is 60% preventable.

[olddawg]

I think people are living longer because of our advanced medicine and ability to keep them alive. In the past these disease would have killed us