I'm sure Monsanto and the GMO lobby's objective was saving lives in developing countries, not profits. When they pushed GMOs bundled with pesticides and herbicides they did so aided by the corruption in these countries, where the farmers were doing quite fine replanting seeds. Now they're abusing a BASF product to ripen tomatoes overnight.
Who gives a shit about motivation? Do you care if your take-out food was made in the expectation of a financial return, or does it need to be made out of the restaurant owner's sincere love of feeding strangers?
Considering what motivates someone can often be useful.
People can behave and make drastically different choices based solely on motivation. People will often pick and choose what information they choose to share or choose to hide based largely on the motivations that are driving their project.
Motivation can drastically alter the way an idea is presented to the audience in which it is being presented.
Obviously we would prefer to have one hundred percent accurate information to base all of our decisions on but sadly, we don’t —- considering the motives of those who are selling us whatever they’re selling is wise.
Motivations here as are complex as the players involved. It's entirely reasonable to expect that researchers who invented e.g. golden rice were thinking about the lives it'll save. It's also entirely reasonable to expect companies to support development and deployment of it because it's profitable for them.
On a less extreme end, companies sure want crops with improved resistance to pathogens and insects for profit reasons, but this is the case where their incentives somewhat align with public good.
> It’s entirely reasonable to expect that researchers who invented e.g. golden rice we’re thinking about the lives it’ll save.
Absolutely. I was simply responding to the above poster’s implication that we should never consider motives when someone is selling the entire world a product.
And I agree with you completely that it’s reasonable to expect there was some altruism in producing golden rice. It’s also reasonable to expect companies who have billions of dollars tied up in their patents on the world’s food supply might selectivity choose which information they share in order to make their product appear in the best light possible. In some ways it would be unreasonable to assume they would share their negative info with us, they have an incredible amount to lose if we don’t buy into their products.
And look, I’m certainly not suggesting that GMOs are evil, I am incredibly excited by some of the advancements we’re seeing. I’m just saying there is nothing wrong with considering motives when different data streams seems to be in tension with one another. Simply considering motives as one small piece in the puzzle is rational.
I believe to make informed decisions, we need as much information as possible. And understanding motivations is just more information to help us parse. Again, I’m incredibly pro-gmo, but I’m also willing to consider there may be consequences to some products and some policies - particularly when these policies are mixing intellectual property and patents on something as important as the worlds food supply.
Complex motivations, with humans that's almost a truism, agreed.
>companies sure want crops with improved resistance to pathogens and insects for profit reasons, but this is the case where their incentives somewhat align with public good //
If we ignore all other aspects of the public good. Yes we want cheaper food, but not at the cost of poisoning of farmworkers or consumers, eutrophication, destruction of bio-diversity, destruction of soil structure that aids long-term fertility and reduces erosion, etc.. These are all externalised [potential] costs.
>It's also entirely reasonable to expect companies to support development and deployment of it because it's profitable for them. //
Every day this becomes less reasonable to me. Why should we allow the financial profit motive of a small number of capitalists be the primary driver as opposed to the general good of the demos; it seems so perverse to reduce the decisions on managing of economic aspects such as food production to "what makes the owners of Monsanto et al. the most money without producing a provable and immediately catastrophic harm". Bof.
A lot of this information comes from studies affiliated with industry:
A 2011 analysis by Diels et al., reviewed 94 peer-reviewed studies pertaining to GMO safety to assess whether conflicts of interest correlated with outcomes that cast GMOs in a favorable light. They found that financial conflict of interest was not associated with study outcome (p = 0.631) while author affiliation to industry (i.e., a professional conflict of interest) was strongly associated with study outcome (p < 0.001).[129] Of the 94 studies that were analyzed, 52% did not declare funding. 10% of the studies were categorized as "undetermined" with regard to professional conflict of interest. Of the 43 studies with financial or professional conflicts of interest, 28 studies were compositional studies. According to Marc Brazeau, an association between professional conflict of interest and positive study outcomes can be skewed because companies typically contract with independent researchers to perform follow-up studies only after in-house research uncovers favorable results. In-house research that uncovers negative or unfavorable results for a novel GMO is generally not further pursued.[130]
This is one very good reason why the motivation of industry should be examined carefully. If their motivation is profit and they are allowed to optimise for that alone without any oversight or regulation AND on top of that they are the keepers and dispensers of information about their product, what chance does the general public have to make an accurate assessment of their product's safety?
That's some cult-level doublethink going on here. Of course you need to understand motivation. "Who cares what the motives of ISIS are, they're rebuilding towns and cities destroyed by imperialist aggression.." <= try that experiment in thought.
I do care because it makes farmers dependent on Monsanto seeds + chemical packages, for they cannot compete with the ones that are using these products and go out of business otherwise. This reduces food diversity, aids big agricultural conglomerates while harming small producers and leads to creation of food deserts.
