That's fair. It seems police forces across the US have learned to be less confrontational against protestors, and in general this has been a good thing.
I've expressed this in a sub-optimal manner, but I'm concerned about what I see as an erosion in the degree to which we give police officers discretion about how to do their jobs in the name of what amounts to a political ideology. I'm also concerned about what I see as a mentality of fear and distrust against authority (of all types, not just law enforcement), and the tendency to act on this fear rather than trying to ensure that those who have authority have it for the right reasons.
The protestors are using fear (the fear of being attacked by police) to achieve a political goal (somewhat murky but the general gist seems to be to accelerate the depolicing of cities).
The protests went further than just shutting down the freeways, at least in my city. Here they blocked a transit tunnel that moves commuters through downtown, forcing the buses to use crowded surface streets and completely disabling the light rail.
> The social pendulum in the U.S. has swung far too far towards an authoritarian police state.
My view is it's gone the opposite direction. We've neutered our police forces such that they can't even protect the rights of citizens to go about their business without being impeded by anti-authoritarian protestors, and we've accepted that as a fact of life. If this country didn't have the inertia of having the world's reserve currency and the largest industrial capacity for a crucial ~50-60 year period, nobody would invest in us given our social unrest.
The right to peaceably assemble shouldn't supersede the right for citizens to go about their business. The protests crossed that line when they started shutting down freeways and transit. The only difference between that and terrorism is the rhetoric.
I place "The World According To Monsanto" in the same league as "Zeitgeist" and "Loose Change". Great if you want affirmation of your worldview, pretty underwhelming if you're interested in facts.
The first GM crop to be licensed for human consumption in the US was the Flavr Savr tomato, which contained a trait that improved their shelf life and appearance. It was a commercial flop and taken off the shelves after a few years on the market.
> * GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use.
That's true for industrialized agriculture in general and not specific to GMOs. Growing GMOs doesn't promote monoculture or pesticide use any more than growing conventional crops do. In fact the same farmers that grow GMOs often grow conventional crops at the same time, or switch from year to year, with very little change in their practices.
> * Studies have shown that the same developments that make GMOs more insect resistant can also make them more difficult to digest.
> * When it comes to animals, GMOs tend to have much poorer quality of life and tend to be completely incapable of surviving without constant support (chickens who can't stand on their own, cows who can't go more than 48 hours without milking, etc).
I am not aware of any GM livestock in use. Monsanto, the bogeyman of anti-GMO activists, does not research or produce GM animals. AFAIK the only GM animals on the market are things like glowing goldfish.
> * GMOs almost never focus on the true value of a food item, but rather the sell value. A food that looks nutritious is more valuable than one that actually is and GMOs make it easier to create that false association (deep red tomatos that taste like wall paper glue, etc).
Again this is a broader symptom of industrialized food production and is not related to GMOs. Yes, there are GM traits that are meant to do what you expect (e.g. the Flavr Savr tomato which was a commercial flop, and the Arctic Apple which is just recently rolling out) but this is a trend that goes back decades.
Propaganda works both ways, and Sourcewatch has a massive blind spot when it comes to anti-corporate propaganda. Their page on Monsanto is full of uncritically repeated propaganda from the likes of Vandana Shiva.
Very cool. Years back I attempted to write a web app in Python to chat with MegaHAL, and though I managed to get something working, I was in way over my head at the time and the app had too many bugs to release to the public.
I don't think anyone here is trying to tear Davis down. It's just that his writings can reflect poorly on our community as a whole to those who aren't familiar with his circumstances. In the current climate of hit-piece, shoot-first-ask-questions-never outrage journalism, for which the straw man of the out-of-touch privileged techie is a favorite punching bag, you can't be too careful.
I've been seeing a lot of these types of articles lately, trying to convince how bad off the American worker is and how those fat cats in the 1% are siphoning all of the wealth away. I've also noticed a recent uptick in socialist-populist activity. I'm not sure which is the cart and which is the horse but it seems like articles like this have a specific political agenda in mind.
I've expressed this in a sub-optimal manner, but I'm concerned about what I see as an erosion in the degree to which we give police officers discretion about how to do their jobs in the name of what amounts to a political ideology. I'm also concerned about what I see as a mentality of fear and distrust against authority (of all types, not just law enforcement), and the tendency to act on this fear rather than trying to ensure that those who have authority have it for the right reasons.