X-Message-Number: 15832 Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:30:45 +0000 From: J Corbally <> Subject: [off topic] Ludittes >Message #15800 >References: <> >Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 12:58:43 +0000 >From: "Joseph Kehoe" <> >Subject: [off topic] Ludittes >Hi, >Some replies to the luditte thing. >Imagine owning the patent on the rice genome. You can patent genes, but I'm not sure if you can patent the whole genome. Can someone elaborate on this? >It has not happened yet but what if it did. >We should really be thinking about these things now. Genetic engineering >and nano will have profound >affects on everyones lives. Of course some people are afraid that they >will become the sole preserve >of large multinationals or governments. Like computers? >We should take those worries seriously and do something about them now. >We need to sort out the ethical issues in advance. Not always possible. Sometimes the only way you can fully understand the ethics of a situation are to immerse yourself in it, to forge ahead and see what's out there. There can NEVER be a 100% guarantee in advance. This is one of the errors anti-technologists make (and even some Technologists eg Bill Joy). Sometimes, there isn't even an ethical issue. As one of my favourite proverbs says; I see and I remember; I hear and I forget; I DO and I understand. Besides, whose ethical standards should we use? Chrisitian, Liberal, Ecologist or Fascist? Ethics aren't absolute. >I never said: >progress is bad You seemed to imply it with regard to Thalidomide. > >Everything that anti-technologists say is correct >I do say >Technology can be used badly >Some things anti-technologists are worried about are valid concerns True, but it tends to get lost in the alarmism. Remeber the moral of the boy who cried wolf. >Multinationals have tried to steamroller these technologies in without >consultation. They haven't. Their consultation was the general public and farmers, whether they liked it or not. And the people left them in no doubt as to what they thought. This forces the multinationals to do a better job next time. This is about the only "good" thing to come out of the ruckus over GE in Europe, but we paid for it with the legacy of distrust. >They have handled the entire thing very badly and turned a lot of people >against genetic engineering. They handled the Challenger tragedy very badly, but that didn't justify people turning on the space programme (as some did). Same goes for GE. >A more open approach would have made them more friends. >We do not fully understand how genes affect organisms. Only one way to really find out. "I do and I understand..." >That is giving rise to some concern regarding changing >the gene sequence in foodstuffs. If there are any problems we will not >find out for a decade or two and then it is too late. >Remember DDT? >Remember Thaledamide? >I don't think Industry does. From what I've been hearing, DDT wasn't the horror it was made out to be. I stand to be corrected on this if I err.. But the medical community does remember. They're using Thalidomide it as an anti-cancer treatment. Remember those bad and good consequences... >That being said it is hard to have rational discussions with people >holding "religious" beliefs (e.g. Creationism). >I can see way to convince them about the benefits of technology but we >should try bring as many people along as possible. >Answers to other replies >The article on The mid-west farmers and seed control came from the London >Independent (National Paper in Britian) last year some time. I do not have >it stored anywhere. I'm checking out their archives. If I find it I'll post it here if it's small. >Farmers in India, China and most of the undeveloped world grow their own seed. >Roundup is sprayed on crop, just not near harvest and not very often. The >point about Montsanto was that they lied about the crops they were testing. >If we only have 5% of the actual gene pool saved then no amount of nano >can bring them back. >About owning your own genes - If a company can patent one of your genes, >then it is NOT your property is it? My apologies, I was a bit ambiguous; Replace "my genes" with "my genome". If they try to own that, we're in trouble.. > >>Poverty, slavery, war and sickness occur more now than at any > >>time in the past. > > > >Absolutely NOT true. So wrong as to be indefensible. This one sentence > >shows that you've not done a single iota of homework to back it up. No > >offense meant to you here, but I have to call it as it is, and this is a > >false statement, on every count. >Could you name that time in the past when there were more people suffering >from sickness, famine and war than now? Sure. The Black Death; Smallpox, TB and Polio; World Wars I and II. Infant mortality. We've seen nothing on these scales in a while. For all the press AIDS gets, it's not infected near as many as suffered from bubonic plague. > >If you can do that then I was wrong. Just name that time. >You will need a time when approx. >3 billion are malnorished >27 million are slaves (not including people who live under despots) >there is a major (at least one) war every day of the year Regional conflicts, not major war. Let's not exaggerate. Consider it "major" when a war on the other side of the planet leads to the introduction of rationing here. At one time, every major nation (as well as the poor ones) had a system of slavery. Africans brought to America weren't ignorant of slavery; Their own tribes had practised it for generations before Europeans/Americans came. While the numbers today may seem high, when put in context with population increases, the incidence is reduced. Be careful of using raw figures, they need historical numeric context. >To help you out if you go back more than 50 years you will fail on the >first count as the total population will be less than 2.5 bn >That there is also more wealth now than at any time but that does not >detract from the above. Perhaps the more important question isn't when 3 billion were last malnourished, but when the percentage of the world population suffering malnutrition was lower than it is now. There was a time not so long ago when first world nations had malnutrition as par-for-the-course. These days it's pretty much limited to 2nd and 3rd world nations. Another question to ask oneself; When the population was 2.5 billion, did we have the technology to feed everyone? No. With the population now just over 6 billion, can we do it today? Or more importantly, DO we? I do notice that farmers in the third world are starting to turn to GE, on their own terms. Once again, the people are deciding. And they are more afraid of starvation than GE. >The 1% of the worlds population having a college education may be wrong >but I do see how 8% could possibly be right. >I will check up on it. >Joseph. >---------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." -Q, Star Trek:TNG episode 'Q Who' Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15832