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Post by jonnyyuma on Jan 28, 2012 22:19:51 GMT -5
........the temptation to find a new puppeteer to give one motivation is strong, but eventually one may be able to move independently. Security can be a prison. I do not appreciate your implying that I am a mindless puppet that requires direction for motivation. I live independently of my employer and am not beholden to them for anything. I am 100% confident that I can make a living/survive on my own two feet. Security is not a prison, for that matter neither is being employed by a corporation that is deemed evil. Thank you, Jonny
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Post by jonnyyuma on Jan 28, 2012 22:33:10 GMT -5
12540dumont : I think Monsanto is one of the most dangerous corporations in the world. I am out of timing with this conversation but I never knew that in 2009 Monsanto had aqcuired the largest mercenary operation in the world, ACADEMI was formerly known as Xe as was known as Blackwater . Interesting acquisition . My gut instinct thinks the words "strategic " and "grave" come to mind . Hello Synergy, I can find no evidence that Monsanto acquired Academi in 2009. They are a public company and they would have to disclose if they purchased Academi and for what price. I looked at their reports to investors for FY2009 and 2010 (as the calendar year will overlap based on Monsanto's fiscal year calendar) and there were no acquisitions of Academi, XE, or Blackwater listed. There seems to be quite a bit of internet chatter that is opposite to this, as well as a few that confirm this. They may have hired Academi for consultation on security, as is also listed on-line, but I couldn't find anything in the reports I mentioned. As an employee of Monsanto, I hope they do hire security consulting firms ( I know they do), as I travel to very dangerous countries/regions for my job. I like to know what the security situation is in these countries and more than once my trips have been cancelled by Monsanto's security for risks to my well being. Prior to Monsanto, while Seminis was independent, I was on my own when it came to my security while traveling in foreign countries on business. Seminis and Monsanto have had employees kidnapped in Mexico, so this is a very real situation. Thank you, Jonny
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 28, 2012 23:42:37 GMT -5
I think large seed corporations and GMO (and what comes along with that) is obviously counter to what you, and everyone else here for that matter, are trying to do, but I know their is a place for both. I think that philosophically I am not opposed to transgenic recombinations or to GMO. (I would like for example to see the nuclear DNA of garlic combined with the cytoplasmic DNA of onion to see if we could come up with a fertile variety of garlic.) I do not knowingly grow transgenic/GMO for pragmatic reasons: - The legal liability is too high.
- I prefer to support local suppliers and local growers.
- I like public domain software and public domain seeds.
- Many of the people I grow food for would be offended.
- I would not be willing to sign a contract with a seed supplier.
- Quality control for GMO products seems unreliable and ineffective. (I think it's only a matter of time before it will be demonstrated that some GMO/transgenic crop caused significant harm to some group of people.)
- Return on investment just isn't there for me as a small scale grower.
- The effective lifespan of GMO products seems too short to justify changing my cultural practices.
- GMO/transgenic crops seem heavily dependent on fossil fuel inputs and I doubt the long-term availability of fossil fuels.
- At the present time, GMO and poison seem to go hand in hand, and since I will not poison my fields there is no reason to consider GMO.
- I'm sure that I could never get the performance from a generally adapted GMO inbred cultivar that I get from my locally adapted landraces.
And for what it's worth, I may have grown GMO sugar beets one year: Perhaps somebody broke their contract with the seed supplier, or took seeds from a farmer, then sold the seeds on eBay... I bought them, and grew them. No harm done though, they were sterile so they didn't produce seeds in my garden and I won't grow that seed again because of the male sterility which I think is more offensive to me than GMO. I made pickled beets out of them and will continue to eat them until they are gone. By the way, sugar beets are fantastic when bottled... Since they are white they don't create red juice to contaminate everything else on the plate.
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Post by castanea on Jan 29, 2012 0:31:29 GMT -5
I agree with Joseph on most if not all of his points. I am not opposed to GMOs philosophically. If someone wanted to make eucalyptus trees produce edible seeds or fruit, I could probably live with that. Or if they would make breadfruit more cold hardy, I could definitely go for that. Same with mangosteen. But intentionally using toxic or other potentially dangerous genetic combinations I disagree with, particularly when the only reason for doing so is to make money. If GMOs are going to be made, they should be made to improve plants and increase their edibility and not the reverse.
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Post by olddog on Jan 29, 2012 12:01:50 GMT -5
Philosophically, am opposed to genetically-modified organisms. Just nature's way is fine with me.
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Post by castanea on Jan 29, 2012 14:39:50 GMT -5
In nature, genes jump. So if humans make some genes jump it's not necesarily outside the bounds of nature.
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Post by elkwc36 on Jan 29, 2012 15:34:33 GMT -5
If GMO's are developed for creating a more productive food stock then I could support it. When they are created so you can spray a toxic spray (Round up) on a live plant and it won't kill it then yes I have a problem and don't want to consume any of those products or the animals which ate them. I know I have as it is very hard now to buy meat not fed with GMO corn or grains. Monsanto and others know the signs are this isn't safe but big dollars have been spent keeping the truth fully known. This is just my opinion and why every year I attempt to grow more of what I eat. In the future I will have to be careful where I buy my alfalfa hay also. Jay
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Post by nuts on Jan 29, 2012 16:59:09 GMT -5
In nature, genes jump. So if humans make some genes jump it's not necesarily outside the bounds of nature. Yea,just like round up, Life and nature is made up off chemical substances,round up is a chemical substance. round up is natural. reasoning made easy,lesson 1
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Post by steev on Jan 29, 2012 18:11:35 GMT -5
Reading back over the last couple pages, I grow concerned that people have quoted snippets of my posts and then gone off in apparently high dudgeon at what appear to me to be straw-men of their own invention, implying that they are responding to me, rather than to their own constructs.
If anyone feels a need to contend with his own shadow, that is certainly his right, especially here in the soapbow area. It is not his right to suggest that I am casting his shadow, to justify his contending with me.
If I have been seen as disparaging any religion, I have been misperceived. I have ridiculed religious fanaticism, as I will ridicule fanaticism of any stripe.
When I have been employed by others, I was controlled by them: my place of work; my hours and workdays; my compensation; the work I was to perform, all these were controlled by my employer. I never thought I was a mindless puppet. I "cut the strings" to become self-employed, just as I "cut the strings" to go out into the world at the end of adolescence. In both of those situations, I chose more freedom, at the cost of less security, as preferable to more security, at the cost of less freedom.
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Post by castanea on Jan 29, 2012 19:15:58 GMT -5
In nature, genes jump. So if humans make some genes jump it's not necesarily outside the bounds of nature. Yea,just like round up, Life and nature is made up off chemical substances,round up is a chemical substance. round up is natural. reasoning made easy,lesson 1 My point is twofold: 1. that the definition of natural is pretty flexible and 2. that whether something is natural or not natural should not be dispositive. That people insert genes that are not beneficial is the real issue and not whether genes jump in nature. Roundup is a toxic substance. Its toxicity is irrelevant to whether it is defined as natural or not. Ricin is natural. But it's still toxic.
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Post by templeton on Jan 29, 2012 21:19:30 GMT -5
Some interesting tangents and by ways being generated from this thread, again. Discussions of what is 'natural' and what isn't are always fraught. I think we often use the idea of 'natural' as shorthand for a suite of connected ideas, which mostly include, (but are not exclusively) - human scale in space and time, organism or 'surface of the earth' inorganic based materials and processes. Its a fuzzy concept (or perhaps a 'cluster concept' eg define what a "game" is...). To say humans are natural and therefore anything they do is natural is trite - it stretches the term to effectively render it useless. But it's interesting to see what people think counts as natural. For example, I think to talk of nuclear fusion as a natural process is a stretch of the term - sure, it takes place in the centre of the sun, or in hydrogen bombs constructed by humans but it doesn't fit my gut feeling of 'natural'. And the hormones that are the active ingredients in Agent Orange are all naturally occuring (as far as I know) - but I personally wouldn't call Agent Orange natural. I suppose my measure, without being really definitive, is, can I go outside and collect some, can I cook it up, can I go and dig it up with manual labour - this feels like a more inherent meaning of natural to my way of thinking... T
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Post by steev on Jan 30, 2012 1:28:18 GMT -5
Stretching terms to effectively render them useless is often used when reason will not permit contradiction. We see that approach when someone suggests a large corporation should be regulated, rather than being a law unto itself, and that it should be taxed in keeping with its use of the common infrastructure. So often the mendaciously hysterical charge is floated that that is anti-business, anti-free enterprize, stealing ALL the profits of the corporation for redistribution to the undeserving. Such tripe! Next thing you know, some loony ideologues will declare corporations to be people, and hordes of dumbasses will take that as true, rational, even natural! Oh, wait; that's already happened.
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Post by MikeH on Jan 30, 2012 3:06:16 GMT -5
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Post by darwinslair on Jan 30, 2012 13:14:55 GMT -5
link doesnt work.
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Post by steev on Jan 30, 2012 19:24:21 GMT -5
Interesting stuff when clicking "naturally"; nothing connects on the "http.."
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