^ That's so amazingly, depressingly correct. I'm shocked at how often even very smart people seem to accept ideas by the batch. Some very interesting commentary below the article. Replace 'potato' with 'morph' and the issues under debate become somewhat more resonant.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

I was interested to read an article which suggested a major cause of the GMO backlash is in fact economic. Europe exports food to places like Africa. If Africa can grow its own crops due to GM, Europe loses marketshares.

That's not a problem - we'll just ship them seedless crop strains to ensure they never become self sufficient! This is exactly what was done in Haiti via the massive US aid programs, and the result was that nation's further descent into a death spiral of famine and debt. I think it's moot to express any judgement on GM foods in general. We must always ask "Genetically modified [i]by whom[/i]?"

The comments on that article were depressing. It's easy for us Westerners to be picky about where our food comes from. For the rest, those GMOs and the promise of increased agricultural efficiency is the difference between life and death. I honestly don't think that the people who will be eating that extra food are going to care who developed it and why, or how much money they made or lost in so doing.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

I was interested to read an article which suggested a major cause of the GMO backlash is in fact economic. Europe exports food to places like Africa. If Africa can grow its own crops due to GM, Europe loses marketshares.

I don't think that's exactly true. American and European farmers form immensely powerful pressure groups in their respective political regions. They are monstruously inefficient, and subsist largely on lobbying for ever greater protective tariffs and subsidies. African and Asian farmers are already much more efficient, and would gladly undercut their Western counterparts immediately, if only they were allowed - to say nothing of the long term, when investments start pouring in and allow for land improvements. The sudden introduction of GMOs would not change this. Even if African farmers started undercutting European farmers, the latter could presumably just protest about being unfairly forced out of business, and watch the politicians come running to their aid with whatever additional protections are necessary to maintain the status quo. That said, upstart farmers in the EU and US could potentially use GMOs to displace their established counterparts. So my guess is that we will see GMO use heavily regulated, so as not to allow new farmers to use them to their full advantage, but not banned outright.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

We will most likely see a similar backlash against things like resleeving. If everyone can resleeve, you don't need hyperbaric chambers, telomere refreshments, quadruple bypasses or even a gym membership. That's a LOT of cash tied up in keeping us in this body.

That's true in a way, but it's also true that there is necessarily an equal amount of money in getting us out of it. Once again, it comes down to public choice theory, and who is in the best position to push through their political agenda.

What are the nonrational reasons people become transhumanists or generally in the pro-tech, pro-science, pro-progress camp? I can imagine a long list, based on friends and my own experiences: escapism (life is boring right now, lets imagine/hope it gets fun now), fear of death or disease, dislike of ones body or biological frailty in general (as well as love for one's body and zest for life!), optimism bias, identification with a group, compatible values (libertarianism, scientism etc), compatible interests (science, science fiction, roleplaying games etc), the need for a Greater Meaning of life... the list can be made long. Not all of these are bad, but often they are different from the explanations we use to motivate why we want a particular future. The explanations might be good public arguments, but the motivations are why we actually believe them, not so much their truth content. Sometimes it is refreshing to try to discuss underlying values and motivations with an opponent instead, but usually the end result is a matter of taste that cannot be resolved at all except for agreeing to disagree. A green might want to live in a loving, close-knit community in touch with reality, while I prefer grand vistas, formal relations and high abstraction both of myself and my world. There is nothing in common here, except that we have to find a way of living in the same physical world.

I think there are rational desires. Consider wanting to be smarter (better able to achieve goals in diverse environments). Practically any personal goals would be helped by that. It is a near-universal instrumental good. Similarly for a long and healthy life. Desiring the Good life, whatever that ultimate good is, is rational since by definition it would be better than any other life for you (the exception is of course that the desire must not in itself cause suffering, which buddhists cheerfully point out - but even they desire release from suffering).

Wait... isn't a reason rational if it best serves to fulfill the goal or goals? That is, if you have reasoned that being pro-science, pro-tech, pro-progress would most likely fulfill your goal, then being pro-science, pro-tech, and pro-progress is rational, as is your reason for doing it? For example, assuming your goal is to avoid death, a rational reason to be pro-science, pro-tech, and pro-progress is the reason (probably some form of logic) that being pro-science, pro-tech, and pro-progress is the best way to avoid death and an irrational reason to be pro-science, pro-tech, and progress is the reason that says that being pro... pro-progress is NOT the best way to avoid death. And wouldn't that mean, an arational (or non-rational) reason is a reason that wasn't reasoned through? Should someone somewhere be using the term 'motive' instead of 'reason'? Or maybe I am just horribly confused?

@Demon Code: It's not just you. I'm also noting some confusing terms flying around here.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

I suppose a reversed question, then, is what might be a rational reason to be pro-science, pro-tech, pro-progress, if avoiding death and improving the conditions of life for humanity are a-rational? Is there such a thing as a rational desire/motivation, aside from one that is simply consistent with reality?

This is the point where the term "rational" first entered the thread. Axel, could you explain what you meant by it, in this context?

ssfsx17 wrote:

There are also short-term economics to consider: when a country's food market is flooded with cheap food from countries with advanced agriculture, the result is a lot of farmers going out of work and becoming unemployed.

That's true if the sudden flood is unanticipated, like when changes in Western agricultural policy prompt Western farmers to sell their produce as quickly as possible. Presumably, assuming unproblematic institutional conditions, the development of GMOs will be somewhat more predictable, and speculators will be able to plan their conduct accordingly so as to avoid major disequilibrations.

ssfsx17 wrote:

If the country is not close to industrialization, then the result is a lot of people who are now very dissatisfied with life and looking for something to do.

This is sort of already the case in some places. There have been localized attempts in the past to bring about industrialization. What usually ends up happening is that farmers are starving in the countryside because of the heavy tax burden placed upon them and because the only people they can sell their produce to are poor (the West favours its own farmers, remember?), and people in the cities are starving because food is abominably expensive and the few Western concerns allowed in cannot provide enough employment opportunities. In a case like this, a sudden drop in food prices would have short-term effects very similar to those of a Red Cross emergency relief effort. [size=20][color=#A03030]To get back to the original topic:[/color][/size]

ssfsx17 wrote:

This makes one wonder what the circumstances will be surrounding initial transhuman experimentation, and the motives and interests involved in that experimentation.

Speaking in the broadest possible terms, people will attempt to use new technology as a means to attain greater personal satisfaction than would otherwise be possible. Whatever strange motives may inspire people in the future, we can safely assert that, if we can even describe them at all, then they can be described in these broad, simple terms: People do things because they expect it will make them feel better. [collapse collapsed title="Definition of Transhumanism"]

Wikipedia on Transhumanism wrote:

Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

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