Are GMOs safe? Undoubtedly.

TLDR: I answered the question in the title in the title. You don't really need to read any further.

Note: I decided to copy and paste this as my first post but remember that this was originally intended to be a reply in a Facebook argument. I felt it was better here so it still requires a bit of cleanup.

I read an article on another blog that is long and still being curated.

To sum up all 30 or so pages

When an overwhelming majority of scientists (or experts) believe something is true through experimentation and peer review then it's perfectly rational to accept that truth. We, most of us at least, accept evolution why not the safety of GMOs?

Let me direct y'all to this link http://bit.ly/1N1ZKuH that lists 600+ papers on GMO safety (which I found on research gate [1]). Yes, I read the whole thing, no it wasn't too dry so I suggest you give it a read even if a scan of most of the bullet notes when you come up to them.Here's a quote from it that I think you'll find informative: "Note also that by December 2010, 15 years, 81 projects, 400 teams and at least €130 million had been spent by European Union taxpayers on issues relating to GMO safety or GMO acceptance. (This is  documented in December 2010 at another GMO Pundit posting, and is described at a comprehensive European commission website.)."

I understand the fear that people have about GMOs but they're unfounded. There have been decades of work and research done on this topic and you can find it if you know where to look. For instance these folks published "Management and Risk Assessment of Novel Plant Foods: Concepts and Principles, Food and Chemical Toxicology" [2] and (if you search for the direct quote in the article) you'll see that more work is done to assure the safety of GMO crops than are done for many conventional foods.

The labeling and fear of GMOs is, as I see it now, is a response to hysteria not based on any legitimate scientific evidence but rather a narrative based on the moralization of the organic movement. Growing food organically (or just farming in general as is) is simply not sustainable. There is only so much land, crops will only yield so much, they will only be so nutritious and to top that all off our population will continue to grow. by some estimates Earth will be 9 billion strong by 2050 [3] [4].

Contrast that with the benefits are better crops, larger vegetation et al and proven negligible risks (especially when compared to organics). [Section 3.6.11 paragraph 2] "Because large numbers of people can be affected by illness – such as diarrhea, which can spread widely in the commercial food chain – attention to ensuring the absence of pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli 0157 and Salmonella in commercially produced produce is one of the more important food-safety priorities. (...) tragically, too many deaths caused by inattention to food microbe-related safety.

A large portion of the liver, kidney and esophageal cancer in the world, as well as many birth defects and organ failures, can be traced directly to natural toxicants in our foods.  These are produced by molds that grow naturally on our food if we do not prevent them from doing so. It has been concluded that the impact of naturally occurring mycotoxins (mold toxins) has been greatly underestimated and that these compounds may be adversely affecting large numbers of people each year (Wild and Gong 2010)." [6]

It will hinder advancement and make people irrationally fear yet another aspect of science and we already have enough of that. Remember the hoopla about the world ending when CERN was going to run the HARDON colluder (lol, I know, "hardon", had to. I'm a child yo).

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't fear GMOs I only fear giant companies in our country which we all know is now (or has it always been?) an oligarchy. That isn't managed via a label it's managed via law & regulations that we impose on them.

I gotta say, re-doing this research I learned more about this subject and am even more confident in it's affects and effects. I also learned that plants have so many defenses to be kept from being eaten that they're scary enough to stay away from. Bacon and steak for me only for now on. #goutForLyfe

[1] http://www.researchgate.net/
[2] http://bit.ly/1N1ZKuH: Paper #278
[3] http://1.usa.gov/1ia0qRU
[4] Assuming no sudden decrease in population.
[6] http://bit.ly/1PZqiLw

The phrase "Call me old fashioned" can be simply translated

I was on public transit the other night listening in on other peoples conversations because they were loud and I couldn't read my book.

So here's a fun little life hack. When someone starts their conversation with "Call me old fashioned" you can replace it with "I plan to say something stupid".

It's a mathematical law. Andric's law.

Here are some examples:

Example 1: Women
Call me old fashioned but i think a woman's place is at home, barefoot, making food, cleaning and raising babies. 

Example 2: Segregation
Call me old fashioned but I don't think negroes should share our facilities. 

Example 3: Homosexuality
Call me old fashioned but if I see a man with long hair I automatically think he is gay. And you know how I feel about gays. Terribly. 

Example 4: Child Rearing
Call me old fashioned but I think children should been seen and not heard. 

Example 5: Race mixing
Call me old fashioned but I don't like interracial marriage.

I think I've made myself clear.

The problems with racism and hyper sensitivity.

Note: My views have changed slightly and this is no longer up to date.

This is a copy-paste from a response that I made on Facebook about a week ago. This has it's holes but I wanted to put it here, as a sort of note to self for now, until I can fill in those holes. It also touches on a lot of concepts that I haven't associated any terms with. I would like to give it terms only because it would be a reference point that would make it easier to keep everyone's feel on the same level when arguing. It would also be nice to have a glossary of those terms in once place.

There was a discussion going on about this video. There were some jokes made about going into the business of stealing bikes as they were white and they wouldn't be bothered. Here is my response.

I dislike the censorship of anything. Jokes or otherwise. I also dislike so many of the population's hyper sensitivity; so quick to feel oppressed or offended.

If we think about racism we can clearly see that it is in-and-of-itself patently absurd. It's hating something on the basis of a born trait that one has absolutely no control over. So making racist jokes are hilarious to me because jokes should have a foundation of wackiness. How completely wacky is hating something that makes absolutely no sense? 

I'm bothered when someone feels that they should be offended in my favor and it took me years to understand why. Well, years of on and off of thought. It wasn't until I read "The Second Sex" that I came to know of the term of The Other. When someone gets offended for me they, perhaps unaware, are telling me how to think because I can't think for myself. Lets not go down that route. If it bothers you then yes say something but don't think or feel for me.

As for making those jokes of going into the business of stealing bikes? Nothing wrong with that unless you're a humorless human being. I would ranter, and always prefer, a discussion over it instead of asking me "Hey, Andric, is this offensive?". When you ask the question you're asking to remove all of the heavy lifting of thinking and just looking for a simple provocation for when to get offended in the future. Even still, lets not get offended. You're letting stupid little jokes gain power instead of tackling the problem.

There are many thoughts there which we can discuss in depth but I think it would be best for in person.

So feel free to make the jokes. The video shows us the problem but your upset feelings should be placed in how to fix not in being bothered. That gets us no where. 

The topics that I touch on here that I plan to further discuss are:

• The other
• Hyper sensitivity
• Privilege
• Offensive jokes
• Triggers (Not really a trigger in here but there are people that are professionally oppressed and this makes me think of that).
• Thought crime (seems like a stretch, because it is, but I will get into it deeper later).