Jiro comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong

74 Post author: Yvain 19 January 2014 02:51AM

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Comment author: Jiro 26 January 2014 12:09:55AM *  1 point [-]

I object to GMOs, but I object to GMOs not because of fears that they may be unnoticed health hazards, but rather because they are often used to apply DRM and patents to food, and applying DRM and patents to food has the disadvantages of applying DRM and patents to computer software. Except it's much worse since 1) you can do without World of Warcraft, but you can't do without food, and 2) traditional methods of producing food involve copying and organisms used for food normally copy themselves.

Comment author: [deleted] 26 January 2014 09:56:57AM 3 points [-]

2) traditional methods of producing food involve copying and organisms used for food normally copy themselves

ISTR I've read farmers have preferred to buy seeds from specialized companies rather than planting their own from the previous harvest since decades before the first commercial GMO was introduced.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 26 January 2014 08:38:00PM 2 points [-]

Yes, but they wouldn't be sued out of existence IF they had to keep their own.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 January 2014 08:52:07AM 0 points [-]

Good point.

Comment author: Lumifer 26 January 2014 03:00:46AM 5 points [-]

I object to GMOs, but I object to GMOs not because of fears that they may be unnoticed health hazards, but rather because they are often used to apply DRM and patents to food

It seems that should make you object to certain aspects of the Western legal system.

Given your reasoning I don't understand why you object to GMOs but don't object on the same grounds to, say, music and videos which gave us DMCA, etc.

Comment author: Jiro 26 January 2014 04:51:35AM *  2 points [-]

I object to DRM and patents on entertainment as well. (You can't actually patent music and videos, but software is subject to software patents and I do object to those.)

If you're asking why I don't object to entertainment as a class, it's because of practical considerations--there is quite a bit of entertainment without DRM, small scale infringers are much harder to catch for entertainment, much entertainment is not patented, and while entertainment is copyrighted, it does not normally copy itself and copying is not a routine part of how one uses it in the same way that producing and saving seeds is of using seeds. Furthermore, pretty much all GMO organisms are produced by large companies who encourage DRM and patents. There are plenty of producers of entertainment who have no interest in such things, even if they do end up using DVDs with CSS.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 26 January 2014 02:18:54AM 1 point [-]

What do you think of golden rice?

Comment author: Jiro 26 January 2014 05:01:54AM 0 points [-]

I don't object to it except insofar as it's used as a loss leader for companies' other GMO products which are subject to DRM and patents.