Re: The politics of biotechnology

CurtAdams@aol.com
Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:13:50 EDT

In a message dated 99-06-01 10:51:43 EDT, asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg) writes:

> The consensus seemed to be
> that what we need to fix food shortages is richer poor countries. Any
> ideas for extropian solutions of biotech spread?

There's a political possibility which may not even require work. There's an anti-biotech movement but I would think it would be much weaker when countries actually face food shortages. So the novel technologies may end up preferentially adopted in the thrid world. At present cost of development dominates and companies prefer to go where the money is (first world agriculture) But as time goes on development gets cheaper and a modified sweet potato sold in Africa makes more than a modified wheat *not* sold in America. :-)