It's too early to tell. But when we build a nuclear reactor, we don't just make safety systems for likely events. We make them also for very, very unlikely ones. Because the potential risk is huge.
It's the same here. The potential risk is huge. We still have a hard time with things as simple as not killing each others, so thinking we are mastering introduction of these variables into such a complex systems is delusional at best, arrogant at worst.
Given that the people in charge of this are motivated by profit, and that we have history proving such entities will not do the right thing for humanity given the chance, let's not trust them.
Audit them to the ground. Force them to justify themself for 5 decades at every step. Make it transparent, systematic, and independant.
Working on GMO is ok. Trusting them to be safe because lobbists say so is not.
Most people didn't see any danger to something as simple as sugar 30 years ago. We added it everywhere, and now have an obese US population with sky high diabetes levels.
Sugar is not complicated.
The millions of DNA pairs of the millions of species of living things, all interacting, is complicated. Also, we eat those.
So we understand probably 4 percent of it, and we tweak the settings. I don't see any scenario where this is not a serious risk.
If you play with something on a huge scale that you don't fully understand, safety first.
But the worst part for me is that we have to defend the point of view of asking for being careful. Look at this thread. All I'm suggesting is a non compromising auditing system, and it's a debate !
This is insane. It should be the opposite. If you want to opt out of the safety net of humanity, you better make your case.
I'm totally with you. This is insane and REALLY scary...
Now I'm wondering why to be surprised if bigcorps don't care about others future when the individuals don't really care (~=want to make sure everything will be fine and not just assuming things won't break).
WDYT, what can we do about that issue? I'm totally staggered.
Except the unknown? This is the main reason for me as well.
It's like a stranger coming to you with a pill: eat that. I'm sure I won't "just because" its unknown and there is a real chance it might go wrong. If I can't even estimate this chance its worse, it does mean I can not responsibly take the action.
It's the same here. The potential risk is huge. We still have a hard time with things as simple as not killing each others, so thinking we are mastering introduction of these variables into such a complex systems is delusional at best, arrogant at worst.
Given that the people in charge of this are motivated by profit, and that we have history proving such entities will not do the right thing for humanity given the chance, let's not trust them.
Audit them to the ground. Force them to justify themself for 5 decades at every step. Make it transparent, systematic, and independant.
Working on GMO is ok. Trusting them to be safe because lobbists say so is not.