THEYRE FREELANCE CONTRACTORS AND PAY FOR THEIR OWN EQUIPMENT :bird-screm-2:

THEY STILL FOLLOW SOCIAL DISTANCING PROTOCOLS DESPITE THE SULFUR EVISCERATING THEIR LUNGS :amerikkka-clap:

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm pretty ambivalent on the GMO front - I think if it were treated more as a common good (developing and releasing GM strains by public research institutions to farmers for free instead of on a for-profit business model that has to be protected by draconian IP laws, e.g.) and gene targets were selected more in terms of sustainability and nutrition instead of finding ways to cram a small set of crops even further into our industrial monocropping production system, it would have less opposition.

      But even if you're opposed on principle, organic crops are often fertilized with conventional corn and soy. So that's fun.

      • kristina [she/her]
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        So personally I have a couple of GMO stuff I've planted but theyre actually designed to reduce fungal growths on native plants in order to bolster beneficial pollinator populations. They were designed by some universities to stop the monoculture issues and overuse of fertilizer. I like them cause they pretty and require no effort to plant and use :shrug-outta-hecks: Hummingbirds love this shit and snort it like crack

        • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          There's tons of really cool potential applications for using genetic modification to improve diversity. Are you familiar with the American chestnut reintroduction project?

          • kristina [she/her]
            hexagon
            ·
            2 years ago

            I'm vaguely aware of it. IMO the big boost for GMOs is it lets us avoid all of these dangerous (environmentally and for human health) situations for mining. The idea that GMOs can cause cancer or something which is widely touted is very nebulous, also the idea that 'natural is better' is pretty psycho because plenty of 'natural things' can kill you within a weekend.

            • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              It's pretty cool; the idea of the project was to engineer a way around an introduced pathogen that the species was never able to adapt to naturally and re-establish it in the wild.

              I agree that the health risks are overblown - most of the time the gene expression isn't even in the part of the plant that gets eaten. The hysteria is silly. But at the same time herbicide resistant crops are known to encourage higher herbicide applications so I guess there's a case for indirect impacts :shrug-outta-hecks:

    • Quimby [any, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      the big problem is that GMO just encompasses such a broad scope of things. I'm mostly pro-GMO, but the more synthetic the methods get, the more concerned I get.

      If there's one thing we've learned from history, it's that nothing is 100% good with no drawbacks. If they ever engineer a tomato that tastes like chocolate, requires a single drop of water to grow, and has all your daily nutritional requirements, I guarantee you we'll find out 20 years later that it causes super cancer or something.

      • newerAccountWhoDis [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I guarantee you we’ll find out 20 years later that

        it's unable to thrive on it's own, but it's pollen is so potent that natural populations of adjacent plants are contaminated and doomed to go extinct.

    • newerAccountWhoDis [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      GMO is not compatible with capitalism. As long as there's IP, GMO will be used to bankrupt farmers and make them dependent. Also, creating seed that's resistant to poison so the poison can be sprayed on every inch of this world regularly has been a catastrophe for biodiversity.

      • kristina [she/her]
        hexagon
        ·
        2 years ago

        tbf nothing is compatible with capitalism :shrug-outta-hecks: