Re: SOC/BIO: Anti-GM Activists at ICAG Conference in Minneapolis

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Jul 22 2000 - 23:52:51 MDT


On Sat, 22 Jul 2000, Spike Jones wrote:

> It occurred to me there is a minority we havent heard from: the pro-GM
> greens. This is not at all a contradiction in terms, for the line of
> reasoning is this:

> 1) Greens are not necessarily anti-humans, just pro-wilderness.

Yes, and converting a reasonable amount of agricultural land from
something like ~1% NatAg sunlight gatherers into ~30%+ nanotech
sunlight gatherers will leave a large amount available for
conversion back into wilderness.

Doesn't solve the problem of "uncontrolled 'wild' replicators" though.

[snip]

> 5) Therefore, GM is green.

Spike is correct. Nanotech even more so. Of course convincing
people of that is the interesting problem. I always wonder what
the greens say when you say: "Let me get this straight -- do you want
to return the the planet to a wild state where dog-eat-dog is the
dominant condition, i.e. where carnivores are ripping out the throats
or entrails of their prey, allowing them to die relatively unpleasantly?"

Techno-man has done a majority of species a favor by eliminating
other predators and confining his predation to a limited set of
animals which, *in theory*, are sacrificed with a minimal amount
of suffering (though I'd *definately* prefer that all meat be
grown in a vat).

Robert



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