The Gaming Den

Prak_Anima wrote:I can only think of a story about genetic modification of organisms where a limiter was put in. Specifically a lycene deficiency, if I recall, with the thinking that, if the organisms didn't get the lycene supplements, they'd die, so any "escapees" could be managed by just the fact that a nutrient deficiency would kill them.

that didn't work out too well...

Heh, good ol' Jurassic Park....Unless some others stories did it as well.

erik wrote:Anywho, to my knowledge, although Monsanto was developing Terminator Genes, they've never sold any products with them in them. For all we know, Monsanto may well have developed terminator genes that are 100% secure (i.e. no pollen) considering the hubbub regarding them is about 10 years dated now, including that previously referenced link.

All it takes is one "accidental" release, and suddenly Monsanto wipes out all of the regular crop seed and replaces it with their own and ends up "king of the world's food supply". And that would be very bad indeed.

Don't forget the part where they sue you for illegally planting their product.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:

erik wrote:Anywho, to my knowledge, although Monsanto was developing Terminator Genes, they've never sold any products with them in them. For all we know, Monsanto may well have developed terminator genes that are 100% secure (i.e. no pollen) considering the hubbub regarding them is about 10 years dated now, including that previously referenced link.

All it takes is one "accidental" release, and suddenly Monsanto wipes out all of the regular crop seed and replaces it with their own and ends up "king of the world's food supply". And that would be very bad indeed.

No Ganbare, it takes more than one accidental release to develop a super strain that outputs so much pollen it kills off other plants that have nothing to do with it.

For starters, someone in their R&D would probably come out if they were working on a strand of super wheat that is specifically designed to output toxic pollen that kills corn, oats, and every other grain in existence, even ones on entirely different continents.

But yes, continue to fap to your paranoid conspiracy theories about them trying to kill of other plants with a gene that is specifically designed to kill off their own plant.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:
All it takes is one "accidental" release, and suddenly Monsanto wipes out all of the regular crop seed and replaces it with their own and ends up "king of the world's food supply". And that would be very bad indeed.

Ehhh, as Kaelik mentions, you could screw some of your neighbor's crop seeds but you could in no way do global damage like this. It's more like vandalism than plague.

The reason a terminator gene that prevented pollination would be a good thing is that it would prevent infect of neighboring crops. I have more concerns about GM weeds than some dispersal of sterile seeds. Problem with preventing pollination from the GM crops is that a lot of the food we harvest comes after a plant is pollinated, so you'd have to have another crop just to pollinate the GM sterile crops. Oy vey.

Now I look forward to the crazier stuff you can do with genetic modification of plants. Maybe someday we can get someone to have plants transport ions from one end to another sufficient to generate some voltage and tap them for a cheap source of solar power. Or grow all sorts of neat things on plants. Who doesn't want kitten trees afterall?

erik wrote:Ehhh, as Kaelik mentions, you could screw some of your neighbor's crop seeds but you could in no way do global damage like this. It's more like vandalism than plague.

That's true. They might be able to disseminate terminator seeds to poorer countries to wipe out their seeds and make them financially dependent on them, but if they tried to pull that shit with a country with some clout, they would probably end up getting pwned.

What's much more likely is a BP-style cluster-fuck where Monsanto puts out a series of crops with some kind of beneficial modifications that inadvertently screws up the ecology somehow.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:

erik wrote:Ehhh, as Kaelik mentions, you could screw some of your neighbor's crop seeds but you could in no way do global damage like this. It's more like vandalism than plague.

That's true. They might be able to disseminate terminator seeds to poorer countries to wipe out their seeds and make them financially dependent on them, but if they tried to pull that shit with a country with some clout, they would probably end up getting pwned.

Were you not listening? No, they could not. Terminator seeds could not dominate the entire fertilization. If it is interacting with fertile crops then the fertile crops are also interacting with fertile crops. Only some seeds from the neighbor will be ruined. Probably not even a majority since they're more likely to be fertilized by adjacent crops.

You'd have to keep seeding terminator crops there over and over and over, season after season. It would be so blatant and stupid and evil that it would never work. It is like vandalizing some of your neighbor's crops. Not like razing it all to the ground. You'd have to get terminator crops right nearby eeeeeeevery fertile crop site that you wanted to ruin. How the fuck do you pull that off?

It is easier to simply make a superior product such that nobody wants to grow their own crops anymore.

I have no idea what sort of retarded evil conspiracy you think would be capable of this... in order to get a lock on the poorest market possible. But please, just stop.

The reality is that farmers are becoming dependent upon GM crops is because they work so fucking fantastically. They can't afford not to buy the seeds that multiply the yield of their crop. And if the only way to stay in business is to buy these seeds then the people maintaining their own crop lines cannot stay in business. You don't need a blatheringly retarded evil conspiracy to kill off "natural" crops. Economics will do it.

What's much more likely is a BP-style cluster-fuck where Monsanto puts out a series of crops with some kind of beneficial modifications that inadvertently screws up the ecology somehow.

Agreed. That's what I said. That's why having terminator genes that actually prevent fertilization are an important key to safely contained GM crops. It's just a pain because you'd have to have a second batch crop to fertilize them in order to grow most produce.

erik wrote:Probably not even a majority since they're more likely to be fertilized by adjacent crops.

Doesn't this actually depend on the amount of pollen in the air, and thus the number of plants growing in the area (ie: if you have fields of terminator crops surrounding a normal corn field)?

Maj wrote:

erik wrote:Probably not even a majority since they're more likely to be fertilized by adjacent crops.

Doesn't this actually depend on the amount of pollen in the air, and thus the number of plants growing in the area (ie: if you have fields of terminator crops surrounding a normal corn field)?

Well the point is, normal people grow their crops in bunches.

So yes, theoretically, if they only grew one single plant, it would be reasonable to pollinate it with evil terminator seed plant.

But since people usually grow acres of crop, even people who don't use GM, even if you surround the whole damn 4 acre section with evil Terminator crop bent on destruction, you still aren't going to pollinate all their plants with your terminator. Some of them are going to be pollinated by the crops in that big old acre of adjacent non terminator crops.

But the bottom line, Ganbare is retarded.

He's taken the fact that in some trials, some versions of terminator seed have accidentally pollinated and thus rendered infertile some other plants (but by no means most or all of them) and then developed a crazy conspiracy theory about growing plants for the purpose of killing other plants.

He probably doesn't even know what "terminator seed" actually means anymore, because he's convinced himself it means "plant that kills other plants."

erik wrote:Were you not listening? No, they could not. Terminator seeds could not dominate the entire fertilization. If it is interacting with fertile crops then the fertile crops are also interacting with fertile crops. Only some seeds from the neighbor will be ruined. Probably not even a majority since they're more likely to be fertilized by adjacent crops.

You'd have to keep seeding terminator crops there over and over and over, season after season. It would be so blatant and stupid and evil that it would never work. It is like vandalizing some of your neighbor's crops. Not like razing it all to the ground. You'd have to get terminator crops right nearby eeeeeeevery fertile crop site that you wanted to ruin. How the fuck do you pull that off?

It is easier to simply make a superior product such that nobody wants to grow their own crops anymore.

The reality is that farmers are becoming dependent upon GM crops is because they work so fucking fantastically. They can't afford not to buy the seeds that multiply the yield of their crop. And if the only way to stay in business is to buy these seeds then the people maintaining their own crop lines cannot stay in business. You don't need a blatheringly retarded evil conspiracy to kill off "natural" crops. Economics will do it.

I apologize for my lack of clarity in regards to my last post. I'm not saying that a biotech firm would just use terminator seeds to obliterate everyone's crops wholesale like you would virus-bomb a planet. My concern is that they would introduce superior GMO crops with Terminator Technology at ridiculously low prices into untapped Third World markets that almost exclusively recycle seed right now, wait for farmers to adopt them, and then start jacking up the prices over time to unreasonable levels after they have bought several generations of seed and have abandoned "regular" crop seed. This could be avoided by either taking steps to create a seed bank or passing regulations to ensure that only a certain percentage of crops can be GM, but given just how good these crops are and the inevitable increase in crop yields that would result from implementing them, the idea of going 100% GMO is too tantalizing for most developing countries to pass up. There's also the possibility that if the seed industry consolidates into one or two major distribution companies, Third World farmers may eventually be unable to purchase anything but GMO seed. That's not an issue if you've set up a seed bank or kept non-GMO crops in rotation, but if you haven't taken those steps, you're pretty much boned.

The developed world is much less likely to experience this kind of predation because 1) we're already buying seeds and herbicides wholesale from Monsanto but more importantly 2) developed countries could actually inflict some serious damage on the biotech industry if they pushed things too far. Squeezing a bunch of peasants in Africa for cash with inflated seed prices has no practical repercussions for an international megacorporation; trying to do the same with the United States would not work out quite as smoothly.

All that being said, I don't think that these facts would be a huge concern if not for the fact that Monsanto owns the patents for terminator seed technology. Given their track record, most people trust Monsanto about as far as they can throw them. They're like two steps away from being the villain of the week on Captain Planet or a oWoD werewolf game. If there's anyone that's going to engage in large-scale cocksuckery to profit off of this technology regardless of the cost in human lives or the environment, it's Monsanto. That's the main reason why the EU is loathe to let GM crops in, and that's why the Third World doesn't want to have anything to do with them. They are not good corporate citizens, and those that are in the know don't want to have anything to do with them.

The Third World doesn't exactly need GMO'd seeds (except maybe Africa, but they need everything). Many agricultural institutes exist in SE Asia focusing on selective breeding. The rice production boom in Vietnam for instance was in large part due to new strains of rice developed by the Philippine International Rice Research Institute.

Besides which, US-style farming is expensive in terms of fertilizer and pesticides. Both of which aren't used as extensively in the 3rd world.

George Will: The earth doesn't care.

Extinctions that are, unlike carbon dioxide excesses, permanent. The earth did not reverse the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today extinctions result mostly from human population pressures—habitat destruction, pesticides, etc.—but "slowing man-made extinctions in a meaningful way would require drastically reducing the world’s human population." Which will not happen.

I dunno... massive flooding, loss of arable land resulting in famine and war caused by climate change could result in a serious reduction in human population.

Zinegata wrote:The Third World doesn't exactly need GMO'd seeds (except maybe Africa, but they need everything). Many agricultural institutes exist in SE Asia focusing on selective breeding. The rice production boom in Vietnam for instance was in large part due to new strains of rice developed by the Philippine International Rice Research Institute.

Besides which, US-style farming is expensive in terms of fertilizer and pesticides. Both of which aren't used as extensively in the 3rd world.

Selective breeding is genetic modification. It's in fact the oldest form, it's how we got dogs from wolves, house cats from wild cats, corn from it's tiny, inedible ancestor, tomatoes from little hard, green fruits, and how a little old catholic monk basically discovered genetics.

In the strictest sense, yes. But aren't we talking about the evils of Mosanto's genetic engineering?

I suppose we are. I honestly haven't followed this too much as it's strayed from my direct knowledge, so, to prevent myself from ignorantly sounding off and looking like a dumbass, I just kind of... don't talk much, except to throw in a couple cents here or there.

I just wanted to put that in there, as it's kind of my favorite thing to bring up when people claim gmos are evil. Not that you did, but you seemed to imply some kind of difference between the two.

but, for that matter, (warning, my derp may show here) while third world countries may not use a lot of (industrial) fertilizers or pesticides, industrialized world outreach projects do tend to. When we go in with seeds, I think we tend to teach people to use fertilizer and pesticides, and when we grow shit here, a lot of it, especially grains, goes to other places, including third world countries where some privileged white guy decided to "help the savages"

While we're talking about genetically modified crops and selective breeding

Here's a nice puff piece about hot chili peppers the odd human love for them and historical evidence of their popularity.

Prak_Anima wrote:I suppose we are. I honestly haven't followed this too much as it's strayed from my direct knowledge, so, to prevent myself from ignorantly sounding off and looking like a dumbass, I just kind of... don't talk much, except to throw in a couple cents here or there.

I just wanted to put that in there, as it's kind of my favorite thing to bring up when people claim gmos are evil. Not that you did, but you seemed to imply some kind of difference between the two.

Genetic engineering and selective breeding are fundamentally different. How many generations of selective breeding do you think it would take to get a cat that expresses green fluorescent protein in its fur?

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:I suppose we are. I honestly haven't followed this too much as it's strayed from my direct knowledge, so, to prevent myself from ignorantly sounding off and looking like a dumbass, I just kind of... don't talk much, except to throw in a couple cents here or there.

I just wanted to put that in there, as it's kind of my favorite thing to bring up when people claim gmos are evil. Not that you did, but you seemed to imply some kind of difference between the two.

Genetic engineering and selective breeding are fundamentally different. How many generations of selective breeding do you think it would take to get a cat that expresses green fluorescent protein in its fur?

Only as different as a dog is from a chihuahua. Selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering, anyone who thinks different is an idiot. Look at what genetic engineering is, ie, the process of engineering for specific desired traits through manipulation of genetics. Now, you can do this through selectively breeding the specimens who most strongly express the desired trait with others who strongly express the trait, or, you can do this by going in with a retrovirus that carries the genetic code for desired trait and insert the code. Yes, it is nigh impossible, at least, to selectively breed for a cat who glows in the dark. But if you're talking about resistance to toxins or disease, like with the plants we're talking about here, you actually totally can selectively breed for that, it's just quicker and easier to use retroviruses and such, and while you're at it, you can add in other traits, like a natural pesticide in the form of proteins which kill most arthropods but are perfectly harmless to other lifeforms.

Ehhh... while I think that selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering, as Catharz correctly notes you can do things directly via genetic alteration that if not impossible via breeding, at least could not happen nearly so quickly.

By cranking up the evolution process to 11 (as in 10^11), you can do some things that are really remarkable, and in some cases really dangerous.

Influenza? Weak! Make it produce the same venom as a cone snail too! For research purposes of course. What's the worst that could happen?

Seriously. Not okay.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

Jilocasin wrote:Seriously. Not okay.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

Not in this day and age it isn't.

Goldor wrote:Not in this day and age it isn't.

This day and age is generally the metric that I measure these things by.

Jilocasin wrote:Seriously. Not okay.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

Old news, turned out (no surprise) he wasn't.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Jilocasin wrote:Seriously. Not okay.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

Old news, turned out (no surprise) he wasn't.

Oh.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 435283.ece

Still fucked up. In fact, even more fucked up.

I heard about this on the radio this morning. These people are a real piece of work:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8102524/dying-girl-taunted-by-vengeful-family

I've since heard that the bat-shit crazy mother is finally backing down. I wonder if it has to do with 4chan's involvement.