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Julian Sanchez | August 31, 2005

Ronald Bailey wants to know why the biotech-hostile EU doesn't want to soothe his growling tummy.

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|8.31.05 @ 8:25AM|#

It's truly amazing how Europeans have managed to murder so many people in so many ways, and managed to do it while claiming that it was for the good of the murdered. Colonialism was about bringing civilization and salvation to the primitives, yet ended up murdering millions. Now, agriculture subsidies, GM food hysteria, and "foreign aid" destroy economies and starve people. Hell, even the evil that the US does or has done can be viewed as it simply copying the European way. Those bastards even have the US taxpayers spending their hard-earned cash defending them. The average European is just an ignorant fool, but the elites are Stalin-evil, just much, much more sneaky about it.

|8.31.05 @ 8:50AM|#

Hey Bill,

A wise man once said that it was better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

|8.31.05 @ 8:50AM|#

If that's 'The Real Bill' I would be loath to meet the irreal one.

|8.31.05 @ 9:22AM|#

It's so true. I cannot tell you how often I have stumbled onto bar conversations in which elite Germans discuss how to liquidate the "primitives" while painting the US in the worst light possible. The ignorant Germans just drink, the fools.

|8.31.05 @ 9:24AM|#

So where is the research that proves GM foods are bad? Fucking morons sounds like ID apologists.

|8.31.05 @ 9:46AM|#

You see what your irresponsible language leads to, Bailey? Cripes, maybe accusing people of genocide isn't a good way to move the discourse forward.

|8.31.05 @ 9:49AM|#

Who you kidding, Ironchef? You wouldnt accept oppo research on GM foods anyway.

|8.31.05 @ 10:08AM|#

So where is the research that proves GM foods are bad? Fucking morons sounds like ID apologists.

Some folks think that the onus of proof is on GM supporters to prove that this new technology is not hazardous. I don't think we can blame some for being cautious. I say this, by the way, as a supporter of GM foods, but expecting people to just eat some new food because we claim it is perfectly safe seems a bit naive.

By the way, the Greenpeace person Bailey quotes and then ignores does have at least one thing right: no one is starving because there is a food shortage on this planet. The problem is with distribution, not with production, and the elimination of American and European food subsidies would do far more to spur local, efficient solutions against starvation than a hundred varieties of GM crops. Bailey is right that more food never hurts, but unless the other problems are solved, it may not do much to help, either.

I think it will still take a few decades to get over the irrational fear of GM, but that "acclimation" period is quite important. I think Ironchef was right in drawing a comparison to ID "theorists", in that the same level of science fear is involved. Sign of the times, I'm afraid, and trust will have to be built up slowly.

Cheers,

D.

MP|8.31.05 @ 10:34AM|#

Some folks think that the onus of proof is on GM supporters to prove that this new technology is not hazardous.

It is not possible to prove that. It is possible to provide a boatload of evidence that allows one to be reasonably secure in the belief that the production and consumption of GM related foodstuffs is highly unlikely to harm anything (the environment or individuals). This boatload of evidence already exists.

drf|8.31.05 @ 10:39AM|#

TCE article 34 (it used to be 30) on health allows, for the first time in most european countries, rejection of products based on that precautionary principle. Unless you can say 100%, all it'll take is a "frankenfood" scare to get the EU out of that.

Before the knee jerk "yeah! [chest thhump] fuckin' euros" starts, we do the same thing here. Just have Katie Couric (spelling?) talk about "grand theft auto", and you'll get a spike in the polls against that. When the government, here, there, or anywhere, has the power and efficiency to act that quickly, that's when we get in trouble.

And MP: did you see the Penn and Teller on hunger? Most activists don't have their facts together. They just blindly follow. Think: people who blamed the himicane in LA on global warming. NOTHING will "prove" GM food to them. (while they puff away on their GM cigs).

sourly,
drf

|8.31.05 @ 11:15AM|#

It isn't so much about hunger though, is it? It's about selling crops in Europe and the resulting income, something Africa is extremely short on.

If it was just about hunger, Europe probably wouldn't even enter the equation.

|8.31.05 @ 11:21AM|#

Jet, you hit it on the head. This is about selling crops/technology which may or may not be harmful. I'll concede the evidence points towards GM foods being relatively harmless for now if Libertarian/repubs will drop the offensive 'What about the starving Africans?' marketing campaign. As the saying goes, whenever corporatists begin talking about African's wellbeing, I begin to reach for my revolver.

|8.31.05 @ 11:27AM|#

It is not possible to prove that. It is possible to provide a boatload of evidence that allows one to be reasonably secure in the belief that the production and consumption of GM related foodstuffs is highly unlikely to harm anything (the environment or individuals). This boatload of evidence already exists.

I am well aware of the scientific studies that bolster the case for GM foods, and I'll thank you not to pursue literalism for the sake of scoring cheap debate points. I am not asking that the safety of GM foods be proven mathematically, or as a consequence of the standard model of particle physics. I think the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard is perfectly fine here. You are quite right that there is a large corpus of evidence in favour of GM foods, and I am a supporter myself. However, these studies are necessarily of a short duration. There is, to my knowledge, no study of GM food ingestion over the course of a human lifetime, as most of this technology is not nearly so old.

So, bluster aside, we don't *actually know* what the long-term (i.e., 50+ years) consequences are. We *infer* that there is no cause for alarm, and I suspect that is how things will play out. But let's not pretend that these people are merely ignorant and incapable of seeing our obvious truths. It will take many more years for people to grow comfortable with GM foods, and calling them morons is not likely to speed up the process any.

drf:

Your point is well taken. Plenty of people blindly follow Penn and Teller.

Cheers,

D.

|8.31.05 @ 11:35AM|#

...did you see the Penn and Teller on hunger?

One of my favorites. And Penn's passionately eloquent rejoinder to all those affluent, boutique grocery shopping, latte sipping, organic food eating whiners complaining about some mythical risk of "frankenfoods" about which they have not the slightest understanding, was classic in both its simplicity and its rightful disdain for those selfish, ignorant fools: Unless you're starving, shut the fuck up!

Seriously these people are much worse the ID crowd. At least the ID'ers desire to cram their silly unscientific views down the throats of kids everywhere isn't likely to kill any of their victims

|8.31.05 @ 11:49AM|#

As the saying goes, whenever corporatists begin talking about African's wellbeing, I begin to reach for my revolver.

And what about when governments start talking about African's wellbeing?

Far more positive change in our own standard of living has come from those evil "corpartists" than from the benevolent governments. Perhaps if African's were not held hostage to the whims of such "benevolence" (i.e. from their own corrupt governments, the Europeans and ours) and were allowed to be "victimized" by the evil corporatists like we have been, their wellbeing might be no more a concern of others than is ours.

|8.31.05 @ 11:56AM|#

hope those words, 'evil' and 'victimized' werent directed at me, strawman. No see-um in my posts.

MP|8.31.05 @ 12:06PM|#

I'll thank you not to pursue literalism for the sake of scoring cheap debate points

Practitioners of the precautionary principle commonly use absolute proof as their standard. The prototypical anti-GM stance has never left me with the impression that somehow the timeframe involved in the study of GM is more than a negligible influence on their stance. I suspect that most of these people have no problems using cell phones, which have the same level of known safety as GM and have yet not been proven to not be a source of cancer after 50 years of exposure. Which is why I have such a hard time understanding an anti-GM'ers stance. If they truly were so afraid, how can they rationalize their lives amidst all of the other technological advances of our times?

|8.31.05 @ 12:07PM|#

So, bluster aside, we don't *actually know* what the long-term (i.e., 50+ years) consequences are.

So what? This statement is both true and irrelevant. We don't know what the long-tern consequences of doing nothing are either. So one could just as rightly say maybe we should not "do nothing" because we don't know what doing nothing will cause in 50 years.

The point is we have to make a decision based on the evidence of risks of any course of action we take and those courses of action include doing nothing - it doesn't get a free pass in the risk assessment game. Doing nothing potentially risks the lives of millions (and no don't give me any of that more food isn't the answer BS - of course it's more complicated but greater yields and easier-to-grow foods and crops that grow in inhospitable climates are a benefit when trying to make sure food gets to the hungry so that argument is just silly). Doing something potentially risks... well nothing has ever been convincingly argued, but, for the sake of argument, lets pretend there is some small risk of damage from these crops. Even then (and there is no real evidence of such) the very real risk to the lives of millions versus the essentially imagined risk of some future unspecified consequences is simply not a close call. Denying people the technology that might help them to assuage the silly, uneducated sensitivities of rich Europeans and Americans is immoral and deserves to be derided. Penn was right.

|8.31.05 @ 12:11PM|#

And what about when governments start talking about African's wellbeing?

I wish someone would've had the good sense to leave'm alone a couple hundred years ago. It was European pedantry and patricianism that led to the 'civilizing' missions that worked so well. And I would argue with Bailey, and likely you, that sometimes more food does hurt. For it spurred population growth, yet the social structure/market system wasnt in place, resulting in more people living, or more precisely, barely surviving in shithouse misery. We altered their carrying capacity with non-local foodstuffs and medicines, and before you go sharpening you Neo-Malthusian spear, ask yourself this: Why havent they been able to complete the final two steps of the demographic transition? I do not blame the US/Euros for that, it is their own culture, their own corruption. However it is unarguable that our meddling is partially responsible for more people living in squalor, outstripping the local resources at the current levels of technology.

Now, you would be correct in pointing out that still extant US/Euro pedantry and patricianism may yet further the problem by slowing the adoption of GM crops. Just dont wrap it in an African human rights campaign. You want to see your Archer-Daniels Midland stock go up. End of story.

|8.31.05 @ 12:19PM|#

hope those words, 'evil' and 'victimized' werent directed at me, strawman. No see-um in my posts.

Oh well excuse me - I guess I shouldn't have seen your use of the words "corporatist" and "reaching for a gun" when they talk about "African's well being" as implying that you think corporatists up to no good, if not "evil" (yes that was a bit of dramatic license on my part) or that African's need the protection of your gun from the corporatists purported concerns. That wouldn't make them victims at all, would it?

If you're going to throw out little quips like that, don't pretend to be so offended when someone reads some reasonable meaning into your quip. Why else was it there? Please.

|8.31.05 @ 12:28PM|#

Just dont wrap it in an African human rights campaign. You want to see your Archer-Daniels Midland stock go up. End of story.

Who cares? Imagine, a corporation seeking a profit and yielding positive results for society as a whole... That's exactly what the capitalist system is expected to produce. You know the "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our..." thing that Adam Smith said is as true today as it was then. I don't care why ADM wants biotech to succeed. But my desire to see it succeed is because I believe it will be better for the people of the world, and not in the slightest that it will be better for ADM, in which I have no interest at all. People blocking biotech for silly unscientific reasons stand to potentially hurt a lot of people - that is my concern - not that they will hurt ADM.

|8.31.05 @ 12:30PM|#

"Now, you would be correct in pointing out that still extant US/Euro pedantry and patricianism may yet further the problem by slowing the adoption of GM crops. Just dont wrap it in an African human rights campaign. You want to see your Archer-Daniels Midland stock go up. End of story."

... or rather people would wish to see a healthy Africa take care of itself and the many suffering there, because we as humans posess compassion towards others, and as such, seek and promote solutions that would alleviate said suffering.

But yeah increased stock prices, that's the main goal. Way to cut through the BS gumshoe.

|8.31.05 @ 12:59PM|#

So what? This statement is both true and irrelevant. We don't know what the long-tern consequences of doing nothing are either. So one could just as rightly say maybe we should not "do nothing" because we don't know what doing nothing will cause in 50 years.

I applaud your amusing attempt to prove that black is white, but I feel you may have ignored my point here. Right now, with all the starvation that we see today, there is still grain rotting in American stores, and in African ports. Given this situation, can you think of any reason why greater crop yields will not simply lead to more grain rotting uselessly? Is it not more productive to lower the trade barriers that are much more convincingly the cause of African agro pathology?

We have come to see science as the eternal deus ex machina, and in so doing we now treat every problem as having a technological root cause. I disagree with European (and African) resistance to GM crops, because I believe it to be rooted in ignorance. However, overlooking the fundamental problems of constant strife, horrific government corruption and free trade barriers as triggers for famine seems just about as ignorant to me.

D.

|8.31.05 @ 1:08PM|#

There is far more evidence of threats from GM crops (to the environment, though, not to consumers) than there is evidence that Africa produces insufficient food to feed itself - in that there is SOME evidence of the former, while there is absolutely no evidence of the latter. In fact, Africa is a net exporter of food.

Bailey likes to draw the comparison with India in the 20th century, but that's bogus - India really did have a food shortage, and more efficient crop yields really was the answer.

This article is a "please think of the brown children" red herring.

MP|8.31.05 @ 1:14PM|#

However, overlooking the fundamental problems of constant strife, horrific government corruption and free trade barriers as triggers for famine seems just about as ignorant to me.

Who is overlooking that? Simply because someone focuses on one particular part of the f*cked up way in which the world mismanages its agriculture does not imply that there aren't 79 other ways in which it is f*cked up, many of which (such as the ones you mention) may likely be more responsible then the issue being presently discussed. Tackling one issue does not imply ignorance of others. There are multiple ways to skin a cat.

|8.31.05 @ 1:44PM|#

"So, bluster aside, we don't *actually know* what the long-term (i.e., 50+ years) consequences are."

Well, we do, however know the long term consiquences of starving to death. No question a lot of the world's hunger problems are caused by bad government policy. If all the world had good or even competetent governments perhaps we could afford to be cautious about GM foods. Well, unfortunately, I doubt the many of the world's governments, especially in the third world are going to be improving anytime soon. GM foods are a great way to save a lot of people's lives right now. To argue against them borders on the immoral.

drf|8.31.05 @ 1:48PM|#

D: (very nice!!!!!!!!!)

"Your point is well taken. Plenty of people blindly follow Penn and Teller."

[removes blindfold]
um. oh that. um. i could take the blindfold off anytime i want. i swear. um...
[hides behind Noam Chomsky blow up doll]
fadeout.

:)

cheers!
drf

|8.31.05 @ 2:08PM|#

Who is overlooking that?

I wasn't responding to you, MP :-) I was thinking more about Bailey's hyperbole: "How Europe starves the world's poor", as though GM foods were some sort of fucking magic fairy dust that he could sprinkle over all the needy kids and make their problems go away. That was my only point.

Cheers,

D.

|8.31.05 @ 2:10PM|#

Joe,

Ireland was a net exporter of food throughout most of the potatoe famine. Just because they export food doesn't meant that they produce enough for themselves. Most African governments are more interested in exporting food in exchange for hard currency to support their kleptocracies than they are in feeding their own people.

|8.31.05 @ 2:11PM|#

Just dont wrap it in an African human rights campaign. You want to see your Archer-Daniels Midland stock go up. End of story.

Matt -

Isn't it possible that people who disagree with you on means might agree with your ends? I think that "fair" trade will lead to a great deal of poverty and misery in the developing world; that doesn't mean that I think those who support it do so with the full knowledge that they're wrong, but don't really care. It's easy to demonize your opponent, to believe that they really don't care, that they're not misguided, they're evil. But it's almost never true. Most of us are moral, decent people, who happen to disagree about how to acheive universal prosperity. Just because you think our means is wrong doesn't mean we're selfish bastards.

drf|8.31.05 @ 2:14PM|#

"fucking magic fairy dust "

this is the second reference this week to "magic fairy dust". The first was a comment referring to ARIMA modeling. now this. this is a good week!

damn. that's at least one round for you (say a beer and a shot)... nice

cheers,
drf

|8.31.05 @ 2:27PM|#

damn. that's at least one round for you (say a beer and a shot>

Thanks, alcohol is always most welcome :)

D.

|8.31.05 @ 2:38PM|#

grylliade,

Ive reread my posts for a second time now. Never said the words evil, misguided, dont care, or selfish bastards. My whole beef has been to take offense to the inverse of those wrongheaded critiques, those who would say 'this market solution is for the good of the Africans'. Markets are neither evil or good, as we all know so well, they are neutral. Sometimes they results are good for people, sometimes not.

Now that ive swatted aside that tattered strawman for the second time, I will admit to conflating the posters here on this site with stockholders for ADM and I see how that gets personal. I would like to revise. ADM and its shareholders want their shares to go up. Nothing wrong with that impulse at all. What irks me is when they lobby for leaders to force their products into 'aid' packages. And I do mean force, as in, take these 'Terminator' seeds or dont take the aid package at all. Now, the Africans possess free will and I suppose they could turn it down. Just dont try and get all moral and decent on me over a company that would de-engineer a seeds ability to reproduce itself so they can get the poor and hungry on the come-back.

|8.31.05 @ 2:53PM|#

John,

"Ireland was a net exporter of food throughout most of the potatoe famine. Just because they export food doesn't meant that they produce enough for themselves. Most African governments are more interested in exporting food in exchange for hard currency to support their kleptocracies than they are in feeding their own people." Absoltely, I agree. What's more, like the English landowners, many African governments (and, to be fair, large private landowners) are compelling the locals to grow less nourishing foods because of their export market potential.

However, none of this is solved by GM foods. So the African overlords get even more food to export, and the market is even more oversaturated, and the unit price is even lower for poor farmers. How does any of this sove the problem you identify? That's my point.

|8.31.05 @ 3:13PM|#

Joe,

All of which says the GM foods are not going to solve the hunger problem completely. That said, there is some good they can do. For example, wheat that will grow in bad bad soil would help overcome the production problems caused by bad land management. Not allowing the vitamin infused rice in Asia seems insane. The point is that GM food is not a pancea but it would help a lot of people and the Euros and gia worshipers in the environmental movement don't seem to care much about that end of the equation.

|8.31.05 @ 6:03PM|#

John, let me make is simple: if there is no agricultural shortage, in fact, if there is a large agricultural surplus, if none of the problem is the result of an agricultural shortage, how is increasing the agricultural output of existing farms going to solve the problem?

That "nutrient-poor soil" you refer to is already producing more food than they need - that's not the problem!

Kevin Carson|9.1.05 @ 11:05AM|#

If you want to feed the Third World, put the peasants back on the land they were evicted from (via collusion between landlords and agribusiness) and teach them biointensive techniques like green manuring, deep-digging, etc. to increase yields. You rob tens of millions of people of their land and turn them into homeless mendicants or shantytown residents, so their land can be used for cattle feed, you shouldn't be surprised by mass starvation.

And never mind state "prohibition" of GM foods--it isn't necessary. Just stop subsidizing the research and enforcing the patent monopolies. And allow a free market in information, without the FDA labelling restrictions and food libel laws that U.S. agribusiness favors. If we had a free market, none of this stuff would be an issue.