Seeds of Conflict

[Dragonetti]

Dragonetti: have you heared the conspiracy that you might be me or that I might be you?

To be fair your beard does look similar!

WTF! I have not heard that!

Who is making this claim? I have a beard, because I am deployed. I want to shave badly!

Also, in terms of facial features. I have a mole on my above my lips on the left hand side. Not many people have that and can be see thru my beard!

[thesummerqueen]

Back again - computer working enough to read things. Also, never start an argument near 10PM when I'm playing Skyrim, because guaranteed I will roll my eyes and get back to slaying dragons. I have discovered that khajiit make the best companions (so far at least). The one I have following me has a nice sense of humor and doesn't talk shit or sigh heavily at having to wait anywhere.

Anyway, Dawud, the crux of your argument was this:

I don't think that unfettered capitalism leads to good diet - the invisible hand seems to help our diet be nutritionally much worse than 100 years ago.

This is on its face categorically untrue, whether or not you mean by loss of nutrients in produce. Capitalism has led to us still having much better access to any number of supplements. Whether they're by traditional means or not doesn't make much difference as long as the body absorbs them and is healthy for them.

It's cheaper for me to supplement my body with Vitamin D than it is for me to take off the amount of time during the appropriate hours in the day during a week to gain my required Vitamin D levels as prescribed by my doctor for the deficiency I suffer. True story. It's all well and good to say I ought to be out in the sun, but the sun causes cancer too, and Vit D pills don't, and I like paying rent to live in my granite-countered, 8th floor condo, you see.

Back to business though:

As stated, SciAm had/has an okay reputation. I have heard some of their reporting ripped to shreds, though. This is nothing new, lately - science reporting is apparently hard as fuck. Or so it would seem. That's a conversation for another day. I'm more concerned about where an article claims to get its sources.

EDIT - this also isn't an actual article, but an answer to a question. It's not reporting on anything, but giving possible answers to a claim.




I notice that the second two sources are from organic-type places. I'll get to that in a second.

The first link goes to a journal that I don't have access to. Perhaps you could actually send the study referenced - that would help immensely. I'd be interested to see it, seeing as it's probably the only credible source and is also the only one with the data I'm interested in looking at.

Because, you see, getting to the organic-type places:

Kushi Institute - "Center for Natural Healing"

I notice they're not a 'science organization' but a place that sells "wellness". First point to skeptical about. Especially because they are using the third source, the organic consumer's association, and organic farmers have nothing to gain from non-organic farming, which is still producing higher yields at cheaper prices for mass consumption. Organics like to try and tell you that their food is more nutritious thanks to it being, well, organic (a term which can mean just about any damn thing, since it has no true governmental standard). I haven't encountered a legitimate study yet that qualifies this as true. Therefore, 'modern agricultural methods,' which most organic farmers try to distance themselves from, may or may not actually be the culprit so much as the other factors like picking time, shipping time, shelf time, etc. This doesn't change from your 'capitalism' argument, per se, but the fact is that there are ALSO (thanks to capitalism) many local growers and farmer's markets (and by experience, I can promise you they actually have bigger produce for cheaper) you can buy from. So capitalism isn't necessarily holding nutrients down except in the general way in which people prefer to go to their clean little supermarket with all their 'unblemished' produce that's probably been shipped from Guatemala because they insist on having fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter. That's what the people want. Supply and demand. People don't want/actually care about being healthy, so they don't eat what they should.

Back to your statement though - you seem to imply that 'fettered' capitalism would improve this...or at least a change from what we have. I doubt it. After all, the gov't subsidizes corn, which we keep growing and growing and growing over and over until we have to invent uses for it besides eating it...

[Dawud]

OK - I think I see where you are coming from but I still feel skepticism is useful I these situation and one should question to avoid blind following "just cos someone's" a scientist.

I'm not suggesting anyone here would do that but I thought it was a good point - may be too obvious though....

[thesummerqueen]

I never said anyone should blindly follow scientists, and I don't know what that has to do with any of this.

[Dawud]

What Im saying is that there can be benefit in opposition to some GM.

That's all.

---

Obvious point maybe

[thesummerqueen]

I suppose. Depends on what you're opposing. That has nothing to do with scientists though, unless you're opposing the science of GM, which is stupid because we've been GMing food for thousands of years. We call it "breeding".

[Dragonetti]

I suppose. Depends on what you're opposing. That has nothing to do with scientists though, unless you're opposing the science of GM, which is stupid because we've been GMing food for thousands of years. We call it "breeding".

You are correct! Breeding for certain attributes!

[A_Nony_Mouse]

@ farmers
They are exceedingly dumb. Breathtakingly, impressively, mystifyingly dumb (they're human, see above). What these people learned at "daddys knee" was folklore and it seems to have completely eradicated their ability to compete with the corporate players. The folks at the corporate farms are the people who have turned magic in the dirt into a science. Now personally, I'd like to see more farmers and less corporate farms - but that isn't going to happen until farmers can run their operations like the big boys - IOW, like they had any idea wtf they were doing.

To clarity I was suggesting that was to maximize earnings in trade-offs of grain plantings and meat raising. I also noted corporations were much better at it. This leaves open maximizing use of land which definitely falls to corporations.