[Deepsycher]

When I speak the place goes quiet.

I am beginning to feel guilty that I ruined this conversation by putting too many points down at once leaving little to discuss.


About suing people who accidentally grow GM crops that fell out of a truck:

The Stupidity of Contaminating Land and Suing for it.

What do you think of that?

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 20 December 2006 - 09:39 AM

[Cyzyk]

I think the law is that if your stuff is on my land for 30 days, it becomes my stuff. I doubt the seed companies deserve a special exception for than magic beans.

[Slade]

DS: On Lefty's old boards, I used to feel like I killed threads all the time, but usually it's just the natural progression of the topics, and they really pass quietly in their sleep. It's probably not your fault.

What sort of illnesses could people develop from GM crops? Wouldn't that mean they were screwing the crops up pretty big, and hopefully recall the food, since the point is usually to make them better in some way, not worse?

[Deepsycher]

Natural progression of topics. So now I can not feel guilty this time.

I don't think they are screwing up crops pretty big. Just the genes they are modifying. My concern is how they are modifying the crop in what way. A serious concern is whether the modified genes that resist insects can cause allergies to people. Insects that needs crops for survival could be depended upon by other creatures or predators as food. Now what do they mean by 'resist'?

Environmental Protection Agency scientists are exploring the use of satellites to monitor genetically engineered crops. Most of these genetically modified (GM) plants have been endowed with the ability to produce a poison against the insect pests that eat them. Typically, this comes in the form of a gene from a bacterium that preys on the pest. One anticipated problem, however is that insects will become resistant to crops' internalized poisons, much as they have grown immune to many conventional insecticides.

http://www.sciencene...030830/food.asp

The problem is that when these pests die out the predators that depends on them could become an even bigger pest, to people. Worst of all can GM crops eventually resist people or the development in people?

Now this is something to worry about. Not just pesticides but plants that produce poison and digesting that without knowing the long term health effects.

For example for rats they tried GM peas on:

GM crop project scrapped after mice made ill

The CSIRO says its decision to abandon a project involving genetically-modified (GM) field peas proves safeguards around the technology are working.

CSIRO scientists had successfully developed a GM field pea in South Australia's south-east which proved almost completely resistant to insect attack.

It promised to be a boon for the $100 million a year industry but now it has been discovered mice fed the modified pea became sick.

The mice developed lung inflammation and the CSIRO decided to abandon the project.

The deputy chief of CSIRO plant industry, TJ Higgins, says the 10-year research project has now been abandoned.

"The reaction of the mice to the protein might reflect something that would happen to humans," he said.

"There isn't any evidence that would happen but there is a chance that it could happen."

Dr Higgins says the case proves regulation of GM crops works.

He says the technology may be applied to other research.

But Greenpeace says it has reservations about the safeguards surrounding GM crops.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Helen Oakey says she has concerns about whether products are properly monitored in the long term.

"It's not a system that looks to see if products are safe," she said.

"When these products are tested what they're actually looking for is an absence of harm, so unless these products actually sort of have quick and obvious effects on people's health, it's very rare that they're actually withdrawn from the shelves or not approved for consumption."
http://www.abc.net.a...11/s1509512.htm

Now I wouldn't want to be in the chance of that happening to me. I believe it works but not for creatures that depend on it and the lungs it damages.


Someone was telling me about a prophecy. One day we will be surrounded by plenty of food but we won't be able eat as food will become inedible to humans. Talking about how people are so much protected against bacteria whilst some animal's immune system can digest and fight against against mouldy food; Is our immune system becoming weaker as we protect ourselves? This prophecy might be very true.


(1) Resistance against pests
(2) Resistance against animals
(3) Resistance against humans

I do question number two because there is always the possibility of a species developing immunity.
This is what I mean about the crops resisting people.

What do you think of that?

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 21 December 2006 - 02:41 PM

[Cyzyk]

The main thing that keeps making our immune systems better and better is that we have millions of people in close proximity. Who needs to wait for zoonoses when you can just get the germs from one of the thousands of people you see every day?

[Deepsycher]

You mean to let a nation get infected or all the germs to be spread out in a nation so that immunity can be shared at the same time on contact?

The opposite could be devasting if the germs develop immunity especially as some are doing with antibiotics. Just like how a new strain of E Coli called ESBLs developed recently in battery farming sites in England which resists antibiotics. Inspectors believed that it is the food the caged up animals are being fed.

Along with decaying meat which is allowed to an extent as animal feed and remembering the incident where a meat packing factory started buying decaying meat for animal consumption to cut out the bad bits to sell it back on the food chain. This in combination with the drugs can make a good practice ground until the bacteria finds a way to become immune.

My point is that these are bacteria from rotting meat, talking of common colds and colds from animals but GM food is a potential man changed thing that can go wrong for purposes of trying to kill parasites that eat crops. Just concerned whether the altered genes for producing poison can cause deformities in people. In the same way as some kinds of fruits such as poisonous berries try to resist from being eaten.

The problem is that, how can immune systems fight something that is hidden or not seeming a threat in it's first state until it spreads and makes changes round the body?

There is a saying "What you eat is what you are" and I don't want to be made up with a gene that poisons insects and possibly me. Its like putting tablets that affect certain animals in foods so that they don't eat it.

Now the concerning things are the side effects of long term usage of the insect resistant genes.

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 22 December 2006 - 02:59 PM

[Cyzyk]

So long as I get my third eye and psychic powers, I don't care about the long-term effects.

More seriously, this is a perfect example of what I find disturbing about our current culture. We all mouth exp​ressions regarding the safety of constant bombardment by radio signals from millions of cell phones and wireless networks, not to mention whatever goes around the microwave door. Since the average man is completely incapable of understanding or absolutely unwilling to bother learning about the forces at work in these devices, he can only accept what the eggheads say about them being safe. The peon knew the sword of Damocles over his head was a danger to his health, but even President Truman hadn't a clue what would happen when he dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki other than a big explosion.

I'm far from a Luddite, probably being closer to a raging technophile, but the rampant ignorance shown by the "average man" is going to destroy us. Why? Because that "average man" is more worried about saving $5 on his microwave than whether it is safe or the conditions the employees who made it work under. One is beyond his comprehension, the other outside his experience; both are non-factors. The $5, on the other hand, represent a real and immediate concern to him. Since Mr. Average wants to save five bucks, and there are many more Mr. Averages than people who understand what makes a microwave work, we will be offered the appliance Mr. Average wants, rather than what a more educated consumer might want.

I ought to start an ideological movement or political party. We have sciences like psychology and sociology which have matured for almost a century, yet we continue to elect lawyers and military men to rule our countries. Nepotism can be a good thing, as many traits seem to be genetic, but it doesn't seem to be helping us all that much right now. We expect doctors, who can only affect us on the individual level, to have almost a decade of expensive and intensive training and practice, yet qualifications for politics are little more than money or the right relatives.

And because all our policies are made by men who barely understand the world around them, whether its social or physical aspects, we live in a world where we simultaneously can missile a toilet in the Kremlin but cannot successfully hand out aid in Somalia. The EU decides that it is better to grow sugar beets in Belgium than sugar cane in South Africa, despite that Belgian sugar costs literally three times as much including shipping costs. Where are the economists? The botanists? Heck, where are people who realize that 7 is a lot less than 22?

Law is not the purpose of government anymore. We need the lawyers out, and the real experts in.

[Deepsycher]

That explains it about the rampant ignorant technophiles who want to force other nations with a product or re invention they don't need but with a hidden motive. I am becoming more disappointed with regret to what I discover but I don't accept that what every egg head says is true especially with that hidden motive.

I don't mind paying a bit extra for quality good work.
I am against paying cheaply for bad quality work when the worker gets paid a pittance of that. One of my concerns about long term health effects is the potential to market something quickly because of its cheapness and not put much research in as you say understanding it:

Like the issue with:

Other than my suspicion surrounding the exposure to asbestos in the attempt to make the working class citizens or poor people slowly die off before they were able to get their pensions the companies knew:

One of the most tragic aspects of these diseases is that they could have been prevented. Since at least the 1930’s, manufacturers and distributors of asbestos knew about the health risks associated with the mineral asbestos. They knew that their workers and those people exposed to asbestos fibers would develop lung diseases. However, since they were aware that the latency period (or the period between the exposure and the development of the disease) would in most cases be years and often decades, they decided to let the next generation deal with the problem and place profits above the health and safety of hard working and innocent people.

http://www.environme...criptions97.asp

As here in the 1930's industries knew about it. This is what I mean about the long term health effects. How can you trust these people? Oh I forgot, isn't the information all the "average man" needs to know passed down to the eggheads as an excuse?
If this unforeseen in that the whole thing was a waste of health, time, and government money as you say because someone wanted to save $5 but that could make installer an egghead too in not knowing too. Shows that those people only of then.


Also fibre glass:

A breakdown of the fiberglass lining in the supply side of the ductwork was later disclosed. The liners were cut to fit, but the edges were not sealed or taped.

http://www.sustainab...ctims/brown.htm

To the rest of the articles this is what happens when something isn't researched very well.

"The regular doctors, they don't know what they're doing," she said. "If anybody could have seen the fiberglass, they would have saved us a fortune and months of grief."

Now are the doctors egg here heads too? Most of the stuff in the victims page seems to be about the demonstration of shoddy work involving mishandled fibre glass insulating.

Draisner's efforts capped years of protest by local residents who are concerned with the tons of particulates and pollutants which the Knauf factory will dump into their end of the Sacramento Valley, which is ringed with high mountains and already suffers from poor air quality.

http://www.sustainab...News/shasta.htm

This is the problem. The effects are showing. Doctors above don't what they were diagnosing and like the carelessness of abestos they are going to pollute the valley and like in the Industrial Revolution:

City leaders in Shasta Lake, California, rolled out the red carpet for Knauf Fiberglass, claiming it would bring much-needed jobs to their economically sluggish area. But not all local residents were thrilled.

They are making use out of workers in a "sluggish" area perhaps with "sluggish" materials resulting in pollution to be duped on their residences.

They say here that Knauf is a German-based multinational corporation, BUT I am STILL looking whether they sell the same stuff in Germany on their website. If this is to be true that they don't trade, make or use this fibre glass in Germany then it speaks of hypocrisy.

Now what kinds of things can happen when the workers start to take advantage of the jobs there?
It is a lot to read but take a look at this:
http://www.sustainab...tims/lavery.htm

The company tells its employees the major risk from fiberglass is skin irritation, not lung cancer, Knisely said.
"(United Technologies) has said, 'There's nothing wrong with you. It can't hurt you,'" Lavery said. "United Technologies was a gas chamber, and I think in time they're going to find that out."

It is not healthy to breathe in any kind of dust for a long time and can't be compared to just getting a rash.

Now compared to GM foods, they were tainting the peas grown in Australia to the improvements with its success of growing on the field but not the fact that the genes they intended to only resist insects (like how they say fibreglass is irritation to the skin and won’t cause lung cancer) made the rats ill with lung inflammation. Now wasn’t that was overlooked in a similar way?

Furthermore the main points I am thinking of is the idea of modification, but what for. Now taking in consideration, Cyzyk you said someone wants it $5 cheaper (maybe at first) despite the economics of reducing the quality of life and thinking of just now.
Well I am too tired to think of anything else.

I think the next thing to talk about is the temptation to buy cheap knowing that it is unsafe and educating the eggheads with myths.

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 24 December 2006 - 06:36 PM

[banned]

I had no idea... (it still tastes good, it's not like it'll kill me THAT much faster. why should I care?) I heard the beef we eat is genetically modified I think... juicy...