Fuck the poor and starving, we need our energy

I figured the only members other than me that find this kind of longwinded shit interesting, an interview with a Conglomerate CEO of Teh Evil Corporate Empire Nestle: maybe 'flow, a policy wonk like Anc, or a handful of the anti-statist free market advocates. But then yesterday I see dicky in a thread saying with a strait face we're being poisoned by most foodsellers, then I see midnight funeral's start thread about stupid ignorant Hungary's kneejerk opposition to GMOs (I considered posting this there, but I've been accused of hijacking threads, and this interview has content that's much broader).

A couple of questions: does anyone here support the use government-mandated or government subsidized ethanol here? What, do you hate black people or something?

And what's wrong with GMO for all the planet's poor and starving browns, they're fuckin starvin anyway, so what's wrong with poisoning them?

No.

Edited. Yes.

There are too many people on Earth. That's problem #1. We need a good, long, population depleting World War to solve that little bugger. Or a good stout plague. Not in the productive First World, of course. All those lazy do-nothings in the Third World need to get gone. Oh and China. Oh and India.

We have plenty of energy and don't need ethanol. It's the hreenie enviros that are causing starvation.

Too busy to really weigh in, but I'm tired of hearing about how GMO's are going to feed a starving Africa. Corrupt governments all across that continent are kicking the indigenous folk off of the most fertile land, leasing said land to China, then the Chinese come in, hire the now starving people to raise commodities that they then ship back to starving China.

Feeding the world my ass.

This is why property rights are so important.

The problem with that is by the time the human race builds back up to the level of technology and population we are now, we'll have forgotten the lessons learned.

We need to solve the problem now and move forward from here - without depending on a "reset" button.

Neutron bombs. Eradicate the population, leave their cities standing.

Why would technology suffer?

My initial thoughts on it are the market should be left alone without government interference. GMO's are great because they can feed a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I look down on organic.

I think the real danger here is the world growing only one type of crop, and the worry that if one disease or virus comes along that targets that particular strain of wheat or corn or whatever, that the entire world's food supply could collapse. With that being said, farmers should use the same strategy traders use for investing: diversify. So if one crop succumbs to disease, you'll still have others who survive it.

But therein lies the problem as well. If one particular strain of crop is so much better and more productive than any other yield, why would farmers want to use anything else? I think the whole organic craze and mandate by governments to promote this is the result of this fear. Governments first and foremost, want to keep power, and will try to hinder anything that may collapse their authority. If the world grows only a few types of GMOs, and those collapse or are destroyed by plague,, then suddenly, the government has massive starving populations that want to overthrow them. So the mandate to encourage farmers to grow organic is partly driven by this.

This one is a tough one. Under a free market, why would any company choose to grow a crop that doesn't yield a higher return? But in doing so, it could set the world up for a disaster if, God forbid, that crop fails and it happens to kill 95% of the world's supply. I don't think it should be one or the other. GMOs should be used for poor countries, and for those who can afford it, we have the organics market. And I think there can be a healthy organics market even without government intervention, though it would be a much smaller market if the government did not intervene.

I thought that North America was the only place to use corn to feed people anyway, and that everywhere else pretty much just used to for livestock.

For every "reset" we've had in the past - Collapse of the Roman Empire, the Black Plague, ... the ice age - technology has suffered.

So, the real question would be "why wouldn't technology suffer"?

Fluffy gets confused.

Looks like someone took a wrong turn on the way to here:

http://www.iowacorn.org/index.cfm?nodeID=30319

When you've figured that out, look up the Nestlé boycott, circa 1977.

There's no point in even trying to edumacate you about GMOs.

That's mostly a myth. The "collapse of the Roman Empire" didn't do diddly dick to technology or the progress thereof. Same with the Black Plague.

And the "ice age"? Really? You can't even claim that any such thing as "technology" even existed across the last ice age.

Suggest an alternative that doesn't require me to do anything differently.

We didn't have to re-learn indoor plumbing? Amongst other things. It's 5 now and I'm outta here or I'd go on.

We only kept our technology after the dark ages, because the Muslims preserved western learning.

..now THEY'RE in the dark ages...so...the dark ages never actually ends, it just moves around like a slow motion hurricane...

Biofuel from corn etc. is stupid.

You can much better turn sunlight into fuel by using its focused heat to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a solar furnace, and then using the hydrogen to power vehicles.

YOu can run that industry in places that would never be used for crops anyway, such as deserts.

Indoor plumbing?



No such thing until the last couple hundred years.

I'll agree that large scale problems (such as collapse or plague) can slow down technology but technology still marches along.

WWII disagrees with you.

WWI too.

Ruins on Crete from as early as 3000 BCE tell a different story. Egypt, Rome, and parts of India also had elaborate systems of aqueducts and bathhouses.

However, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that in parts of the U.S. people still don't have flush toilets...

Well to be fair those were different then collapse of society or the black plague. War doesn't usually cause a reset, especially for the winners.

If we had SARS turn into a real bitch and kill like 50 to 75% of a countries population I'd think we'd see technological progress slow down and change and in some cases stop for a while.

He left out the part where it is our responsibility to keep up the "starving" parts of the world. A novel concept would be for them the grown their own corn so they would not need ours. As long as they refuse to do this then they will always be poor and starving and nothing can change that.

The poor aren't starving for lack of food in the world. They're starving for lack of purchasing power.

We aren't talking aqueducts and bathhouses.

We're talking indoor plumbing.

No. And yes.

They are starving because of their governments.

Exactly my point of what is wrong with the mindset of those people. If you grow your own food, you don't have to purchase in the first place. If you are poor and smart, you will learn to do for yourself like people did in the great depression. If you are poor and dumb you will starve. All nations should grow enough food to support their own populations.
I remember reading that the UK grows enough to support over 80% of the food they consume, which means in a pinch they could feed them all. If that island nation can do it, then other places can do it. I don't blame their governments, its up to the individuals. No government has ever been able to collectively grow food worth a damn.

Corn Based Ethanol uses more oil to produce than it saves. Not to mention the damage done to the Mississippi and Gulf (look up Gulf Dead Zone) by it's runoff. There is nothing environmental about it, it's just more government subsidies for the corn lobby.

Speaking of which, since it's election season, watch and see when each is trying to top the other on how much waste they are going to cut out of the budget how many Republican Candidates propose cutting any of the multiple and HUGE subsidies the Corn Industry recieves. See how many, when discussing environmental regulations, will bring up the failure of our corn ethanol program?

I'll go out on a limb and say none of the potential continders, not if they want to win Iowa anyway. Our candidate selection process (Iowa, N.H. and S. Carolina being the most important early states) means that the farm lobby has a built in platform from which to secure promises of future USDA, EPA, DOE subsidies and favorable regulations. The Corn lobby especially.




Speaking of the importance of corn to Iowa, check out the (panned) new Cy-Hawk (Iowa - Iowa St. game) trophy:


Awww... isn't that sweet!

First off, how is a bathhouse not an example of indoor plumbing? Have you a seen a schematic of one of those things?

Anyway, the Romans had indoor plumbing, central air, the steam engine, and even a coin operated vending machine. However the extreme disparity of wealth and reliance on slave labor meant that the first two were confined to the extremely rich and the last two never saw wide adoption (as labor was incorrectly priced, why buy a steam engine when you can have slaves just turn a wheel?). So the steam engine was only used to open temple doors and the vending machine dispensed holy water.