[thaumasiotes]

> The [pr]ecautionary principle is not followed in any GM process so invasive.

While that is true, the precautionary principle is also not followed in any other process. It can't be, because the precautionary principle is nothing more than the statement "never do anything, not under any circumstances".

[BurningFrog]

Phrased a bit nicer, the PP will always result in the decision to not do something, because you can never be 100% nothing bad will result.

This is why people only apply PP to things they don't want done.

[thaumasiotes]

> the PP will always result in the decision to not do something, because you can never be 100% nothing bad will result.

It's worse than that; the precautionary principle will tell you that you can't do [whatever it is], because there might be risks, and it will also tell you that you can't refrain from doing [whatever it is], because there might be risks to that too. It is completely logically incoherent, an intellectual embarrassment.

The only thing that determines what the precautionary principle will tell you to do is what question you choose to ask.

[inkblotuniverse]

"Let other people put this stuff in their bodies, and see what happens to them".

[jiggawatts]

What "happens to them" is that their life is sustained by calories and nutrition they would not otherwise be able to afford.

This kind of GMO is literally (not figuratively!) life-saving technology.

Just like the Haber process enabled fertilizer to be produced cheaply, saving billions of lives. Without it, India would have faced mass-starvation and its population would be half of what it is now.

Now, you may wish to argue that the World has become overpopulated as a consequence, but then the question becomes: How would you reduce the population?

Most people would prefer to elevate societies through sufficient sustenance, comprehensive health-care, and stable governments. This seems to reliably result in negative or zero population growth.

Your view seems to be that it's preferable to starve hundreds of millions to death, leaving the survivors in abject poverty to avoid... what... "meddling with nature"?

[inkblotuniverse]

No, you misidentify me; I'm not one of those anti-human "the world is overpopulated!! Degrowth!!" People. Better food is good; I just assume someone will fuck up at some point while we're figuring out nutrition and genetic engineering.

Let the hundreds of millions eat what they will; any problems or mistakes with gene-edits that lead to poisoning, carcinogens or insidious malnutrition will be sorted out after a few decades, I'm sure. I just don't want to be the guinea pig, if I can let a hundred million other people do so instead!

Those hordes of hungry mouths are a great laboratory: diverse, far enough away and poor enough they can't take revenge on you if you accidentally poison them, etc.

[haswell]

This is an extremely privileged position to hold. Faced with starvation, I suspect you would feel less like a guinea pig.

> Those hordes of hungry mouths are a great laboratory

Is this sarcasm/satire?

[inkblotuniverse]

I'd feel like a hungry guinea pig! I'm very glad to have the privilege of avoiding novel foods.

Is it not true? I suppose not; they are a laboratory, but not a very good one.

[RosanaAnaDana]

Just ignorance and the privilege to maintain it.

[thereisnospork]

That is a perfectly fine personal position to take, but an awful position to take as a society.