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sudo wrote

When a company sells patented seeds that are designed to withstand being deliberately bombarded with, what is essentially toxic waste, and then creating the conditions that require those expensive patented seeds to be rebought again and again, that isn't something we should be supporting. But that's how GMOs are implemented under capitalism.

Then you're not against GMOs, you're against DRM in GMOs. I don't see why saying DRM-free GMOs would be the norm under socialism is a "fantasy," any more than saying DRM-free software would be the norm under socialism (and it would be).

Same goes for Nuclear power. It was created to wage utter devastation on America's enemies, to kill millions and contaminate the land for generations.

Totally wrong - nuclear fission was discovered by researchers who were seeing what happens when you bombard X particle with Y particle - creating a weapon was not their intention.

You know they won't want to store the waste on their own soil, they'll send it somewhere where it will poison impoverished communities.

Spent nuclear fuel is stored in compounds with heavy radiation shielding - it won't be poisoning anyone. The only danger is that millions of years later, people will forget where it was buried, stumble across the site, open it, and be exposed to radiation then.

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Lenny wrote (edited )

Then you're not against GMOs, you're against DRM in GMOs.

If 100% of GMOs use DRM, then what use is it saying "I support GMOs"? You could make the same argument about the police. "Even though 100% of police are bastards, I support them because we could potentially create a non-bastard police force some day". It's fantasy.

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sudo wrote

You're making the fallacy of composition. Just because something is true for a certain part of the whole, or even every part of the whole at one certain point in time, doesn't mean that it's a feature of the whole. DRM very clearly does not have to be a feature of GMOs, just like software very clearly does not have to have it. Imagine, in some alternate universe where the Free Software Foundation never existed, that all software eventually contained DRM. Would you then call yourself anti-software? No! If you're against one certain feature of something, but you otherwise like the thing, then don't say you are against the thing as a whole. Say you are against the one feature. Don't be surprised if people misinterpret you when you say you're anti-GMO, but you really aren't.

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Naokotani wrote

Same goes for Nuclear power. It was created to wage utter devastation on America's enemies, to kill millions and contaminate the land for generations.

Totally wrong - nuclear fission was discovered by researchers who were seeing what happens when you bombard X particle with Y particle - creating a weapon was not their intention.

I assume he/she means developed.

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sudo wrote

Ok, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. It can be used to destroy, or to generate electricity. It doesn't make sense to refuse to use the benevolent functions of something because it also has malevolent functions as well.

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Naokotani wrote

Of course, how could the properties of atoms be inherently bad? I was just clarifying what he meant.

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