Bishop Hill Inhumanity again
Jun 23, 2014 Greens A Madagasy student named Navid Rakotofala has had a great deal of fun inventing outrageous anti-GMO posters and watching environmentalists uncritically reproduce them, regardless of how inhuman and unfeeling the thoughts expressed. Here's an example of his work:
I particularly enjoyed the "Monsanto kills and eats baby lemurs for PROFIT!!! one too"
The backlash from the activists has been entirely predictable:
What happened when Navid revealed the hoax–confessing who he was, what he had done and why? The fallout from his trickery has intense. After Navid asked March Against Monsanto activists to stop their anti-science propaganda approach, the very first response was a diatribe from a prominent activist in Amsterdam who threatened the young Malagasy boy, writing he was now “forced” to launch an investigation into the funding of Navid’s school system. Navid, he wrote, had served “a dis-justice [to himself] but also [to his] community. I for one take this personally as I am sure others will.” He said was going to try to get Navid’s and the school’s funding revoked.
Perhaps this European MAM activist was unaware of the school-funding crisis in Madagascar and how callous his threat was. Perhaps he is unaware of the complex socio-dynamics of a white man threatening a young Malagasy student. Regardless, Navid is now safely with his family in the remote and impoverished southwestern bush. I need only hint at the blinding irony of a MAM organizer claiming that someone else’s activism is too personal! Look in the mirror much?
I was given a bit of stick by a few people the other day, when I suggested that the behaviour of greens could be inhuman. I'm not sure I was wrong though.
Reader Comments (34)
Environmentalism is just another extremism, their view is either limited by their intellect or biased by their ideology.
They see all the risks but none of the rewards in anything they're against (GM crops) yet manage to have the opposite view for something they like (wind farms). The reality is few things are that black and white, but these jokers don't know, or care, what a cost benefit analysis is.
They don't like being exposed as fools and liars, so please keep exposing them.
Excellent work by this chap.
Can Greens not hear themselves?
Do they never pause for a second as first world middle-class rich people with every opportunity brought by technology and just THINK for a second before shouting and threatening desperately poor brown people in the third world?
Of course not. They know better.
The Greens are fundamentally indifferent to human suffering in their jihad to save the Earth.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/the-big-green-killing-machine-what-is-vad/
Pointman
The Green Taliban like all intolerant zealots, can be very nasty when it comes to critics of their religion. Time and time again they have shown how inhuman and uncaring they can be!
I don't have a problem with people wanting to be environmentally minded, as we face a number of genuine environmental problems - e.g. pollution by land and see by heavy metals, habitat mismanagement and loss, over-fishing of the oceans etc. The problem I have with Greenpeace, WWF, RSPB etc. is that they all think that global warming is by far the most serious problem facing the planet, and consequently they want to pursue policies which will do much more harm than good. Lomberg sums up the situation well:
Source: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-says-that-the-un-climate-panel-s-latest-report-tells-a-story-that-politicians-would-prefer-to-ignore
You were "given a bit of stick" mainly because what you wrote regarding the research and the Irish famine was a fabrication. If it had been true, "inhumanity" might have been applicable. As it is, you should retract it.
Every single Green supporter I have spoken with, no matter what age or sex (etc) has agreed:
'There are too many people on the planet'.
When asked what to do about this 'unfortunate' situation, answer comes there none.
So we once more await the Leader who awakens 'his people' to the danger, then acts robustly (sic) and swiftly to eliminate it.
Following Himmler's lead, a programme of mass abortion might make a good start? After all, if 'everyone agrees' then ergo and qed, it must be the right thing to do - no?
After the 10:10 videos, no further proof was or will ever be needed again. Just link to them every time.
TinyMind
Well named since it obviously isn't large enough to cope with the actual research.
Those who trust Greenpeace and their allies distrust GM crops to the point where they will oppose them even where they are supplied with the evidence that they would be effective against late blight.
In the case of Golden Rice, the eco-activists have been blocking its introduction with a series of spurious objections and encouraging their useful idiots to do the same at every turn.
By logical deduction they don't gave a toss for the starving and sickly poor of Africa (or anywhere else outside their own comfort zone).
Would you care to fault that conclusion?
Preferably with evidence if you can find any.
If you haven't read Pointman's VAD essay di it now!
> "There are a lot of people who would 'rather go blind' you know. It is that important to them"
Does anyone else find this chilling?
Would _she_ rather go blind than eat golden rice?
Mike Jackson, there are always apologists for lies. Many in the green camp seem to think that lying to people is ok as long as it achieves their own aims. You and your bishop think that it is ok for him to lie to readers about research into attitudes to GM if it furthers your and his aims. You, your bishop, Greenpeace and the greens have a lot in common.
Does this European MAM activist have a name, or can we add cowardice to the long list of their evident character flaws?
TinyMind
I'll take that as a 'no' then, shall I?
How much of that research, beyond the abstract, have you read? Is it, or is it not the case that committed Green supporters are opposed to GM crops to the point where they are prepared (by the logic of their own argument) to accept the deaths of people rather than accede to their use?
Which would also mean that they would condone the deaths in the Irish potato famine had a GM crop been available that would have averted it.
I'll go along with you to the extent that it's a bit hypothetical and esoteric but where is the lie precisely?
Mike Jackson, I have read just the abstract. My bet is that the same goes for you and that the bishop read no further than the Science20 article he linked to. I doubt that Science20 had read the research beyond finding in the abstract something that they could distort in order to attack greens. Call me a cynic, but there it is. Can you or your bishop point to something in the actual research that says that people explicitly stated that, were they transported back to the times of the famine and had the necessary seeds in their pocket they would nevertheless not use those seeds?
The case in Madagascar may look more damning as it is presented, but I don't know the full facts and neither, I suspect, do you or your bishop. But never mind ignorance, you seek to make greens look "inhuman". I can see that this furthers your broader aims. You could mention that (e.g.) Greenpeace does not want people to be VAD but favours the continuation of existing successful solutions to VAD instead of deploying golden rice, but that does not serve to make them look inhuman.
I have no objection to GM or golden rice per-se and I don't know enough about it to be sure who is right. What I do know is that providing vitamin supplements and fortification is cheap and that treating children is practical, including in Madagascar (see http://www.unicef.org/search/search.php?q_en=vitamin+a&go.x=0&go.y=0). It may even be more practical than replacing the seeds grown by all families in at-risk places.
TinyMind says
"What I do know is that providing vitamin supplements and fortification is cheap and that treating children is practical, including in Madagascar (see http://www.unicef.org/search/search.php?q_en=vitamin+a&go.x=0&go.y=0). It may even be more practical than replacing the seeds grown by all families in at-risk places"
From which I conclude that you haven't been to Madagascar. You forget one little detail: seeds can make more seeds and that is a trick that vitamin supplements haven't learned yet.
When I trained as a Primary teacher more than a few years ago, we had it drummed into us that we had to be aware of any health issues that children might suffer that we were attempting to teach; efforts to sort out such problems, whatever the cause, should come at the top of any 'to-do' list for teachers.
The reaction of the prominent activist in Amsterdam is quite vicious and illogical but should not shock any person who has had to deal with professional so-called do-gooders. Feeding the poor and raising their health standards is, after all, antithetical to Greenpeace's objectives of reducing human populations.
tty, I see nothing in my answer that gives a clue to whether I have visited Madagascar. And seeds making more seeds may be true. Or it may just be superficially true. Traditional hybrid seeds also "make more seeds" and these could indeed be planted the next year. But farmers still buy new seeds each year to benefit from hybrid vigour (which is lost in the next generation). That is the nature of hybrids. As for golden rice, I have no idea whether the crop can be planted each following year without loss of yield. As it is not a hybrid I assume they can. On the other hand there is nothing in it for companies selling golden rice if they can sell to the farmer only once (and the farmer can then supply his neighbours). So it would make commercial sense for the seed to be engineered so that the crop is infertile. I don't know if this is in fact done - it would certainly seem immoral if so (although I wouldn't say "inhuman").
and when you look at the state of actual madagascar agriculture....
"... the very first response was a diatribe from a prominent activist in Amsterdam..."
Pascal? Is that you? Kumi?
Nial:
> "There are a lot of people who would 'rather go blind' you know. It is that important to them"
Does anyone else find this chilling?
Would _she_ rather go blind than eat golden rice?
***********
She is being selfless. Selflessness means standing up for the rights of people who would rather go blind than eat golden rice.
People who seek out an ideology aren't really interested in examining it critically. Their interest is in its moral component. If practical outcomes differ from idealistic objectives, one can always recite one's idealistic objectives.
There needs to be a separate movement called something like 'Sincere Greens', to highlight that the main ones are not.
TinyMind
When you finally get to know all those things that you admit you don't know but are still happy to pontificate on then please tell us and we might be able to hold a civilised discussion.
Meanwhile stop trying to justify the eco-luddites' opposition to GM crops which is predicated on two simple obsessions neither of which have any standing in the real world:
1. All multi-national companies are evil (except the ones who make things they like to have, like mobile phones, which in fact probably do more environmental damage in their manufacture than GM crops will ever do) and,
2. "Tinkering" with nature is dangerous, ignoring that mankind has been doing that since he discovered fire and invented the wheel.
Utterly wrong.
The moment you descend to tricking your opponents, then you lose the moral right to castigate people like the vile Peter Gleick, or Lewandowsky.
Let the facts speak for themselves and stop imitating the chicanery of the Green/Left, which doesn't even have the self-awareness to distinguish between right and wrong, and will always make these types of blunders as a matter of course.
And yet they still vote green and believe in Green Issues and Green solutions..
Mike Jackson, I'll take that as, "no, I cannot point to something in the actual research that says that people explicitly stated that, were they transported back to the times of the famine and had the necessary seeds in their pocket they would nevertheless not use those seeds"
And if you are so knowledgable, in contrast to my stated unknowns, perhaps you can answer:
- Has golden rice been proven to be more effective than supplementation across poor farming communities?
- Are farmers able and allowed to retain fertile golden rice seed for the following year, does it lose yield on subsequent years, or must golden rice seed be bought each year?
The answers to these questions are not self evident. My guess is that these were unknown unknowns to you and your bishop - you didn't even know that they needed answering. But if you cannot answer such questions then you have no way to judge the rights and wrongs of the issue. That wont stop you or your bishop of course; bashing green groups seems to be part of the sceptic catechism - What of green organisations? They shall all burn in Hell!
TinyMind (4:28 PM): my aims, and, I suspect, that of most others on this site, as well as the good Bishop himself, are for the exposition the truth, and exposing the machinations behind government policies, NGOs, “charidies”, and various sundry businesses (yes, big business is involved, though certainly not all of them; just those who have the most to gain from sucking on the teat of tax-payer-funded subsidies) in their desperate attempts to conceal it from us. Quite where you get your logic that we will lie to expose the truth, I am not sure; what most of us will accept (the Bishop included, I have little doubt) is that there may be instances where we are wrong – in which case, merely correcting, with supporting evidence, is all you need to do.
Your aim, it would appear, is to live in a cosy, cossetted world, where you have no need to think for yourself, as there are just so many people out there who are more than willing to do it for you. We are rattling the comfy cage you have allowed yourself to be locked into, and you do not like it.
What is your view on the infamous 10:10 video of exploding children (seen by many “Greens” as an absolute hoot, and a good idea to implement)?
Tinymind - your speculation about the engineering of Golden Rice so as not to be replantable is simply wishful thinking on your part - seeking vainly for something to discredit the idea. If you want to be taken seriously, you will have to do much better than that.
osseo, not wishful thinking at all - my wish is that it is not so. I would be disturbed if there were such engineering to the plant. If the rice is freely re-plantable by the farmer with no loss of yield - and hence the farmer is able to sell it to his neighbours for planting too, then that is great. This might make it unprofitable for companies selling it, but that is their problem. Golden rice is more of a charitable project than a commercial one so, you might well be correct - but do you know it to be true or is it just your assumption?
Radical Rodent, you said "there may be instances where we are wrong – in which case, merely correcting, with supporting evidence, is all you need to do." Well maybe, but I'd expect a retraction. The text posted regarding GM and Irish famine was clearly fabricated (probably by Science20) but I have not seen a confirmation of this by any commenters or a retraction by the blog. Why is that do you think when everyone has "the exposition the truth" as their aim?
TM, I'm glad to hear that you didn't want your assumption to be true. But perhaps I can help you to see why it was ridiculous. As you correctly say, Golden Rice is mainly a charitable project. It was devised by a Swiss Professor, Ingo Potrychus, as such: and with considerable difficulty he sorted out the numerous patent problems, to the point at which it would be possible to distribute the rice, were it not for the dogmatic opposition of Greens. The project is a poster boy for the potential benefits of plant gene technology. Making the rice unreplantable would kill that dead. The so-called 'Terminator' technology (to produce infertile seed) is a bogeyman that has never been exploited in practice. Before you post anything further about Golden Rice, may I suggest you consult Wikipedia?
TM (sorry for the delay in replying - I often have to work away from the internet): you seem to have overlooked an essential part of my quote; you have called the GM post fabricated, even linking it to a group whom you appear to consider to be of dishonest intent, yet have not supplied any evidence. Do that, and others may take your input more seriously.
Pointman's article made me think. Why the Hell are they actually doing this? Pulling up test crops is a photo opportunity, but actually going to court to prevent people in the Third World getting free vitamin A is expensive and time consuming and, from the media's point of view, boring. It doesn't make them look heroic. It doesn't gain them converts. It doesn't bring in the money.
You'd almost think they believed what they were saying. (What are they saying, by the way?...)