EdgyIndividualistBuffoon wrote on July 8, 2017 at 8:07 AM

Reply to comment by sudo in Monsanto accused in court of conducting an army of shills to crackdown on negative online comments by ziq

Why would a group of people spend years trolling the web looking for any mention of the word 'Monsanto', spending hours defending said corporation if they weren't paid to do so? Who would be that passionate about an agricultural company?

The whole "It's not true unless I see a smoking gun" thing doesn't work when we're talking about corporate propaganda, which is entirely legal. It's unlikely they're going to release their corporate secrets to the public, but anyone that's been around these shills can see they're not doing it as a hobby.

sudo wrote on July 9, 2017 at 1:51 PM

Dunno, why would anyone spend hours going to leftist protests unless they were paid by George Soros? Oh right, because people actually care about those things.

What they're passionate about isn't Monsanto, they're passionate about preventing the spread of scientific misinformation and conspiracy theories. Glyphosate being bad for humans is a conspiracy theory, so they are trying to dissuade people from believing in it. Monsanto happens to be the largest seller of it, so the conspiracies gravitated towards "Monsanto is trying to poison all of us with Roundup." So they debunk these theories, not necessarily because they like Monsanto, but because conspiracy theories are harmful. I don't like Monsanto - they're an evil capitalist corporation like any other. But that's the worst I can say about them.

It's not "It's not true unless I see a smoking gun," it's "It could be true, but there's no reason to believe so without evidence." You should apply this to any factual claim of importance.

anyone that's been around these shills can see they're not doing it as a hobby.

I've been around some "shills," and they most certainly could be doing it as a hobby. I did it as a hobby, but for ancient aliens and flat earth conspiracy theories, not GMOs. I was called a shill numerous times, but I know myself not to be. So, unless you have damning evidence that these people are being paid by Monsanto, there's no reason to believe they are, because the null hypothesis could be true (and, in my opinion, is).

EdgyIndividualistBuffoon wrote on July 10, 2017 at 11:01 AM (edited on July 10, 2017 at 11:02 AM)

Glyphosate being bad for humans is a conspiracy theory

Now you're literally spreading corporate propaganda:

http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i27/California-list-glyphosate-carcinogen.html

It takes a lot for government to take action like that against the hand that feeds them.

sudo wrote on July 10, 2017 at 12:47 PM

As the article said, some studies said it was carcinogenic, and others said it wasn't, so there is no consensus; thus there is not enough evidence to disprove the null hypothesis (no link between Roundup and cancer). California is well known by now to be overly strict regarding what products must be labeled as carcinogenic, such that "X contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer" has become a joke. If you'll look here, you'll see that California can immediately list anything the IARC determines as carcinogenic under its Proposition 65, so California listing it isn't further proof that it's carcinogenic. As stated before, the IARC came to one conclusion, the WHO came to another, etc. There is no consensus.