Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kelipso 603 days ago
Of course it means added chemicals. You cannot be this pedantic and still have a normal conversation. Well...you can but it's very annoying.
1 comments

Casual conversations are not about the technical aspects of food production and distribution that has been refined for thousands of years.

Also, chemistry? As a subject? Incredibly pedantic. The exception is the rule for practically everything.

There are formulations of medications that are selecting for this one shape of the particular molecule which has otherwise identical composition. And that may determine insurance coverage.

If you don’t want to have pedantic discussions, organic chemistry is not going to be a pleasant topic for you.

Odds are none or very few of the people on hacker news are farmers or chemists deeply involved with the agricultural industry, but I imagine this would come across about as favorably as a hacker news perspective on farmers complaining about the way apps on their phone work. Or complaining that computer nerds have ruined John Deere tractors by making them impossible to repair.

Ie it’s going to totally lack any sense of nuance about the business, politics, and logistical constraints involving the existing solutions.

I skimmed all of that but I gather you are saying don't talk about food production unless you are an expert or you want to be pedantic or some bullshit like that. Everyone eats food, everyone can influence food production in one way or another, whether through grocery habits or local or national politics. There is absolutely no way I would want to be associated with such a limiting viewpoint such as yours.
What you’re doing is spreading unqualified FUD towards the work of scientists and engineers involved in bioengineering. We don’t need more ignorant opposition to STEM in the US. We already have large swathes of the population rejecting vaccines with an excellent safety record because taking their chances with an unknown disease known to do permanent neurovascular damage was more “natural”.
As opposed to you encouraging naivite among the general population about bioengineered products? We do need a good amount of opposition to this incredibly naive viewpoint that so many people like you have of accepting whatever nonsense some scientist says as unquestionable truth. If the people involved in bioengineering feel so strongly that the population need to take particular drug, make that argument scientifically instead of going into histrionics about FUD or whatever.

Trust in scientists have plummeted in the last few years because of very good reasons (vaccine mandates, for one). Trust is hard to build back up, so if you want the trust back, you will have to do the decades long hard work of building it back up instead of complaining about it. It's not coming back just because you complain about it.