Modern Primitives...

Frankly, there is no way to know what will happen to the natural order of things when we start screwing with the genetics of plants. It's irresponsible, even if their motives are pure.

 

If you want to be technical about it, agriculture itself isn't "natural" selectively killing competing plants and neatly growing only the plants that are beneficial to us humans. I'm not saying I agree with genetic food, just saying that its no more evil than agriculture itself... just an advancement on it. Like I said earlier... I think we should just let the population even out with the food supply and stop trying to figure out ways to make more.

While I'm on the subject, let me rant a while... take a picture, because this may be the only time, but I get so sick of the "natural" advocates... not that I'm against anything natural, but it annoys me that people automatically assume that natural = healthy and it doesn't at all. People think the two words are interchangeable and nothing could be further from the truth... and people only consider things natural when its convenient for them... you think those clothes you're wearing were made naturally... for people that use shampoo... do you think that's natural? is toothpaste natural? Is cooking food natural? Is the fucking internet natural? No, just like everything else in the world of our species, they're humans utilizing the properties of things found in nature for their benefit. Maybe too many people take for granted all of the "unnatural" things they utilize every day while they're ranting about natural being better. I'm not a big advocate for natural, but I definitely support "nature friendly" which some of the things you consider natural are not.

 

There was a study done, cant remember what it was but I heard it on NPR today that demonstrated Monsanto's GM crops actually produce 10% less than non GM crops.

 

lol now that's irony

 

Right on.
I say let them revel in their own domestication.

 

We've been screwing with the genetics of plants for thousands of years. Do you eat corn?

 

no, actually I don't. never liked it.

I'm well aware of the messing with foods. I rather forage for food when I can.

 

If you live in the U.S you do, whether you want to or not lol... start looking in the ingredients list of everything you eat and tell me how many of them you find that don't have some form of corn in them... corn, corn syrup, milled corn, etc. If you've never tried this, try it once ,even if its something you wouldn't think could possibly have corn in it.

 

oh now, not all us americans are gmo corn gobblers... Some of us go to great lengths to preserve our unadultered heirloom varieties and actually eat corn that is still digestible and has nutritive value.

i cant answer for anyone else but on a personal side we went primitive or regressed into a primitive style of living, farming and gardening .The dreads were simply a natural extension of our lifestyle choice..

 

personally, I don't think a primitive style of living is necessarily a regression... just a differen't style. In fact... I wouldn't be surprised if the world eventually progressed to a primitive style of living after our current way of living fails us.

 

My only point regarding corn was.

Teosinte is what corn was (probably) before humans started messing with it thousands of years ago.

It eventually evolved through unnatural selection (genetic modification) into today's varieties of corn.

 

fixed

 

Selection is not the same as modification. Selection (natural or unnatural) happens over the course of thousands and thousands of generations, Modification happens through one, with no controls on how the modification will affect the DNA chain over the course of many generations. It is scientifically possible that these mutations could result in the future generations producing airborne toxins, or even modifying our DNA. And that is bad...

 

Previously thought to be thousands... now thought to be sooner... a Russian scientist was able to domesticate the wild silver fox in a mere 20 years to the point that they acted as friendly and tame as modern domestic dogs. they even begin to gain spots and other odd colorations like domestic dogs.

I have to agree though... modification is adding and genetic trait that wasn't present before while selection is capitalizing on traits that are already there.

 

Well I obviously think we should be very careful about genetic engineering and will be the first to admit companies like Monsanto are irresponsible legally and irresponsible in attempting to make a relatively new science mainstream without carefully understanding and considering possible consequences. But, I think that in future years with a better understanding of genetics, genetic engineering could very easily skip the many thousands (hundreds) of years required for unnatural selection to modify a plant.

Something I think is more dangerous than your rather fanciful idea of future generations producing airborne toxins is the lack of variety in the gene pool with GM crops. If some type of disease comes along (which will inevitably) and destroys the only variety of soy bean grown because that's all farmers could then the world starves.

 

that's also one of my fears... one of the main purposes of the variety of life on earth is to ensure that a few will always survive to keep the process going. that goes for all life. as that saying goes "variety is the spice of life" meant here in a different way.

 

go to snagfilms.com and watch the docu called The Future of Food. Creepy shit! I grow as much of our food as I can. I have chickens and bee's. My husband takes care of the meat that we need. What we can't get for ourselves we get from the Amish. We grew up living this way. I have dreads not because it seems more natural, I just hated brushing my hair. I have tats because I come from a long line of white trash!! yee haw

 

I knew someone would post this something like this and I knew I would have to say what I am about to say. I say bullshit. It's called junk science. It's totally biased information bought but the company modifying the food. In reality GMO's have only been around for 15 years (roughly) and no long term studies can be done...it's not possible. It's also impossible to study poeple eating GMO's because nothing is even labeled as GMO!

But the pests and diseases they are trying to prevent are mutating and evolving. It's breeding super viruses and pest making their "science" complete useless. Plus, when you take numbers for numbers there is no advantage to GMO's compared to heirloom varieties. The science is out there to prove what I say with great examples with the names of pests and diseases. You just have to do good research and anything credible will tell you GMO's are bad. But yeah, you are correct if you listen to what the companies making the stuff tell you.

To prove what I am seeing, look up the history of how the literally blasted the genes of bacteria living in hazardous waste into corn to it is resistant pretty much everything. It's really scary stuff.

You are 100% correct. Another reason why GMO's are bad and toxic to the environment. There is nothing good that can come from eating GMO's or even to nature itself.

 

I swear I am not picking on you dude. Just reading through and replying to the ones I can add something to. But selective breeding is totally different than GMO...not even in the same league or classification. Selective breeding is nothing more than selecting the best sub-strain that grows best in that geographic location. Each generation passing on the best traits, while not taking from the weak...as I am sure you are well aware of the concept. But is it not beneficial to that plant.

In fact I watched a really interesting documentary on consciousness. Think about it this for a second. Take your lawn or grass for example (lump any cultivated crop there too). You plant the grass, fertilized it, and cut before it can ever reproduce. Only benefiting people right? Wrong. The species itself thrives off human contact. We sow the species super thick, make it grow like a weed, make sure it's as green as we can, and eliminate all other competition (weeds, wild flowes, tree, bushes) from growing...thus ensuring the survival of that species.

The same thing is said with a garden. By selective breeding we are making the species more resilient, stronger, and more fertile...thus ensure it's survival. I disagree whole heatedly that we can't be beneficial to plants AND they are even aware of it. I wish I link to the documentary as it was fascinating and I am only touching on the concept.

Not sure what your getting at here. I don't use toothpaste with fluoride, it's natural. I don't use shampoo, just water. Cooking and the internet are totally natural. We are human beings, stillanimals at heart. And stuff we do IS natural our behavior and the I don't see how our ability to learn isn't natural. I guess it's how you define natural. Just because we make intangible things and stuff from synthetic materials doesn't make the actual act of doing so natural. I still don't get you point btw.

 

GMO corn has only been around since really the early the 90's. (Anyone) please correct me wrong with a source if what I am saying isn't true. But we have had modern corn for a long time. It's just the new roundup ready shit to be resistant to pesticides...still looks the same really.