ひげ
one of my coworkers doesn't like seedless watermelons because they're "genetically modified."
do people really not realize that it's just a matter of having plants in different situations when they grow that changes them like this? plant breeding isn't literally like injecting chemicals into them and stuff lol.
a lot of scary, conspiracy-like stuff i think is based on ignorance of how things work.
@SpurgAnon i personally don't think much is wrong with it. i think it's an interesting science. i don't really know to what extent people are like, injecting seeds with alternate DNA sequences or something like that though xD most of it seems to just be cross-pollination done over and over again to get the perfect blend someone is looking for. the cotton candy grapes, for instance. it's just like a combination of different grapes to get a flavor that tastes like cotton candy, done by hand originally.
people look at that and see some abomination of nature or something, but really it's just the progression of agricultural science. it's not like, evil shit lol.
it might even become necessary at some point for some things, who knows. there are some plants that might go extinct, or lose nutritional value, or something along those lines that people might want to preserve and the only way to do that is through GMO stuff.
@SpurgAnon what do you even consider GMOs to be?
You ever look into why we started making GMOs? Because of the starving niggerinos. So what happened after making gmo crops? Megacorps didn't feed the niggerinos, they made it too costly and nearly impossible for normal people to get real, natural food. In some cases its not even economical to put gmos on the shelf in comparison to real food; so why do it?
@SpurgAnon what's your definition of "artificial" in this case, though? like, how far does it go before it becomes artificial? is growing plants in test tubes after combing through years of scientific research artificial, even though after the science was solidified it's now possible to just grow them in a garden in the right conditions? or are you talking more about like, using artificial sweeteners and such?
i think it's bad when it's done to edge out profits when doing so is unnecessary, but that's unrelated to the actual science of it all and more related to scummy business practices.
If you have to selectively breed the plant/animal over several generations, it's good.
@SpurgAnon @beardalaxy If you have time to spare, I recommend watching The Thought Emporium's livestreams to get a feel for genetic engineering: https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium/streams
You can do genetic engineering at home if you want, there isn't a risk of making something completely unknown. The risk is that you might get exactly what you meant to get. Like, engineering antibiotic-resistant bacteria is just a normal thing to do when you want to isolate a particular strain.
@SpurgAnon @beardalaxy They might turn out to be a horrific mistake, but the same could be said of selective breeding or any other technology.
What do you mean by the result of genetic modification being completely unknown though? That you get an unknown organism? Or that the effect on the environment after decades of practicing it will be unknown?
BTW you can blast crops with radiation to produce mutations, selectively breed the ones with mutations that you like in addition to lots of other random mutations that you don't know or care about, and the result is not considered a GMO in the US. Mutations occur naturally anyway, so arguably this is just "breeding, but faster." (This sounds sort of like whataboutism, but I still think it's a useful comparison.)
Inserting cow DNA into apples is new and dangerous.
It doesn't take a genius to see that one of these things will eventually turn out bad.
@SpurgAnon @beardalaxy I don't think that inserting cow DNA into apples sounds dangerous. Is there something specific that you expect to go wrong, or is it a general principle of caution around new technologies?
Selective breeding is good. Gmo is bad. The real reason being: the end result of gmo is completely unknown, the end result of selective breeding is known.
Gmos are an abomination of nature.