Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

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Jeez. Try to imagine the worst possible outcome from a can of garbanzos having the phrase "Contains genetically modified ingredients" written on it. It boggles the imagination. Civilization might crumble. Or perhaps people would just largely choose to eat the same sort of food they ate before genetic modification was possible on an industrial scale. Or maybe they'd choose to eat the GMO garbanzos. Hard to say which outcome is scarier because frankly, neither one scares me at all.

i'll have you know that one of the most respected political minds in this country, Bill Maher, is an anti-vaxxer!

(btw that same co-op newsletter once published a "vaccines might cause autism" piece which got a round of angry letters from doctors who are co-op members. sadly the co-op responded with a bullshit "we are an open forum, we present all sides of issues of concern to our members" hand-waving motion. if i had my druthers i'd have given up my membership then and there. but they have a really tasty hot bar.)

I voted against the GMO labeling initiative in WA a couple years ago because of its origin in anti-science hippieism, can't abide that shit.

(the anti-science stuff is a good reminder that political identification is largely a matter of tribalism and that "liberals" are just as dumb as anyone else)

do a lot of people have a knee-jerk tendency to defend cruz against accusations of infidelity because it's way more upsetting to believe them. i don't mean politically i mean like ew gross no way

srsly I have no desire to imagine Cruz thrusting his filibuster-stick inside anybody

I have a lot of the anti-GMO crew as friends. they also say things like 'BEWARE ASPARTAME POISONING' like it's a real thing

"i'm ted cruz, and i endorsed this quickie"

lol

toxins you guys, don't forget you need to detox to get rid of toxins

"GMO" I'm most cases means that the food was covered in RoundUp, which is something that I'd like to know about. Plus, making it illegal for companies to VOLUNTARILY label their food smacks of big brother to me.

er, the pro-labeling crowd wants to make it /mandatory/ to label GMO food as such (with the obvious implication that we should be concerned about it)

i'm not opposed to companies voluntarily labeling it! and neither are most of us, i assume.

just like companies are free to label their off-brand pickles as "gluten-free" (LOL)

The idea that somehow the entire nation would start reading the fine print on every bit of packaged or processed food they buy, become hysterical at the idea of eating GMO food, then destroy several decades of scientific research in a sort of 'village mob destroys Frankenstein's castle' moment is in itself verging on hysteria.

I would estimate that maybe 15% of US consumers at most give a shit about GMO one way or the other. Including those in favor. The anti-labeling position seems as emotion-laden as the anti-GMO position to me. It will not make any appreciable difference if labeling is required. Not enough people would reject GMO products to do more than shave some profits off the balance sheets of some food conglomerates. Boo fucking hoo.

the vote in Washington didn't make it illegal for voluntarily labeling, it made it illegal to mandate it:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/06/washington-state-voters-reject-gmo-labeing/3450705/

xpost and amateurist just said that oops

(the anti-science stuff is a good reminder that political identification is largely a matter of tribalism and that "liberals" are just as dumb as anyone else)

Yeah, that's the real trick. People start going against what we shorthandedly call science when shit starts going against very closely held beliefs that tie into identity. Hell, Mike McRae wrote great book about it.

Also, intelligence is no complete defense against believing dumb shit, due to how we form beliefs(hint: it ain't rationally).

there are also plenty of librulls that are all like "burger flippers don't *really* deserve 15/hour, man" too

My bad. In any case, the super-condescending "just trust us" attitude around GMOs I get from my scientist friends seems ignorant of the rich history of unintended consequences that have accompanied virtually every scientific advancement.

Every social group has bete noires and touchey subjects; its just that the subject area for how these touchey areas form is different due to differing worldviews/narratives. Lefties get more easily het up about corporate shit, rightwingers freak about about gov't shit.

And certain things cross tribal lines to cause fear and moral panics for all sortsa reasons(e.g. flouridation, anti-vax, etc).

Cuck panic

My bad. In any case, the super-condescending "just trust us" attitude around GMOs I get from my scientist friends seems ignorant of the rich history of unintended consequences that have accompanied virtually every scientific advancement.

― schwantz, Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but I don't really think "did we really do enough testing? what if WE'VE CREATED A MONSTER WE CAN'T SEE" is really justification for the stances the anti-GMO crew take.

some of them are out there blaming GMOs for things like cancer based on dubious and/or discredited studies.

like the anti-GMO movement doesn't really ask questions except in the rhetorical sense, and they usually adopt the most Chicken Little stance on the matter that they can find

Just cuz hippies are lame doesn't mean that we should trust Monsanto, is all I'm saying.

The internal combustion gasoline engine has delivered us from endless drudgery without any bad consequences apart from maybe a bit of particulate pollution, and a smidgeon of greenhouse gases from the exhaust. Hardly enough to bother about.

i wonder how you'd study the effects of some of this labeling - gluten-free, no GMOs, all natural, organic, etc.. some of which is regulated some not.. troubling if consumers mistakenly believe foods are healthy simply because they're "natural" and no GMO and whatever. i see this with people at work, family members with the "natural" juice/sparkling drinks which are hardly better than just drinking soda.

i pay fairly close attention to food labels myself but i settle for 'good enough' ie i eat a lot of frozen organic vegetables from whole foods and don't really eat processed food most of the time, but if there are doughnuts at the office sure i have one

**anyway** speaking of anti-science, i mean, in a rational world all the GOP candidates would be at sub-30% in the polls since they don't believe climate change is real and caused by humans. it's really depressing to me that climate change has hardly been mentioned in the debates thus far

Just cuz hippies are lame doesn't mean that we should trust Monsanto, is all I'm saying.

― schwantz, Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think one can have distrust for Monsanto the corporation while also acknowledging that thus far, there's been no proven negative health effects from GMOs.

My bad. In any case, the super-condescending "just trust us" attitude around GMOs I get from my scientist friends seems ignorant of the rich history of unintended consequences that have accompanied virtually every scientific advancement.

― schwantz, Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But the anti-GMO stance is analogous rougly to Trump's "let's not let in any more muslims until we can figure out what's going on." You never "figure out what's going on" to a satisfactory degree for people who take that stance.

the anti-GMO, pro-labeling movement engages in pretty much the exact same tactics as the anti-vaxxers do

another consequence of requiring labels on GM products, other than what amateurist mentioned, is that it quite understandably increases demand for "organic" or non-GMO products, which despite having comparable nutritional value tend to be more expensive. for the (white, middle class) people who actually care about the issue, this is no big deal. for everyone else, it might be

but we digress. and we've had this exact discussion on a couple of other threads before

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And it took about 25 years to figure out how bad DDT really was.

Sorry for the derail. I'll shut up now.

lotsa Trump investors wailing about the money they lost tonight going all-in on a Trump win based on that shitty ARG poll. I should be going to sleep but reading it is hilarious.

on PredictIt forums

As schwantz pointed out and I have also said on other threads, the only GMO agricultural products to have entered the distribution chain in any appreciable quantities have ALL been varieties of Round-Up resistant plants. Their ONLY benefit is to allow the producer to spray herbicides on them more often and in greater quantities than similar conventional plants.

I personally would avoid GMO products atm simply because dumping ever larger quantities of herbicides on fields seems like a questionable practice for the health of the workers in those fields and the health of the soil, not to mention the greater chance of my ingesting herbicide residues.

I could give a shit about eating the actual genetic material in those plants. I know it won't harm me because chemically speaking it is made out of the same stuff as any other DNA. It's the fucking herbicides I'm against and atm "GMO" is an excellent proxy for their increased use in food production.

there are also plenty of librulls that are all like "burger flippers don't *really* deserve 15/hour, man" too

no problem votin' for H Walmart-Clinton then

YES WE GET IT

"Neanderthal
Posted: April 5, 2016 at 10:44:40 PM
there are also plenty of librulls that are all like "burger flippers don't *really* deserve 15/hour, man" too"

Huh. You know some shitty liberals I guess

really should have said "Democrats" and not liberals there

librulls is funny and i might use it in the future

actually i think that's really one of morbz' better nickname-insults

he does do a good job wif the nicks

morbz fan here.

awwww :)

btw i am really really sorry Sanders is boring some of you with the wholesale theft of everything by the richies who own our government!

I voted for the dude. not my fault the rest of my state didn't follow suit.

no matter who wins the democratic nomination, if the democrats win the presidency, citizens united is sure to be gutted by SCOTUS anyway, no? that's in the case Obama can't ever nominate his last judge.

I remember this being good on the anti anti-science stuff

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-new-scientism/

If it's actually bad then I apologise

Sanders in Wash Sq Park next Wednesday night

doing sk8board tricks

poppin wheelies, eatin vegan food, gettin arm tats

cool new york jokes dudes

yeah sorry i regretted that instantly