[ExI] "against GM crops" (was Re: punishment)

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Thu Mar 26 10:24:21 UTC 2009


2009/3/26 Dagon Gmail <dagonweb at gmail.com>:
> I have had severe, near violent arguments with some of my left-leaning
> associates over
> GM crops. It could have come to blows. I am very much in favor, and they
> are, in my
> book irrationally xenophobe on the issue. I regard this as very strange.

An issue which is seldom considered in the quasi-religious debate
about GM is "who controls the technologies?".

I may well understand how people may be reluctant to depend on foreign
companies holding patented technologies on irreproducible vegetal
varieties to depend on them for their agricultural output. In fact,
this is not very different from depending from Microsoft for the
working of one's government, public agencies and businesses
altogether.

Of course, the only solution to that is not luddism, but access to
*alternative* technologies, and/or the remedies which in theory would
already exist in most IP law systems to deal with such scenarios
(expropriation, compulsory licensing, etc.).

The problem, however, is that as we say in Italy you apply the law to
small companies and "interpret" it in favour of big ones with internal
and international political clout... :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj



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