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The Great Teleport Debate

America's First 9-11

Everybody knows nuclear explosions cause massive and terrible genetic changes, turning ants and salamanders into terrifying monsters. But where is the evidence? There have been hundreds of nuclear explosions around the world and where are the races of monsters? Where are the gangs of flesh-eating mutants prowling the suburbs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Now we have the spectre of GM, genetic modification of crops. Naturally this will cause anybody who eats a product with the slightest trace of this new material to mutate into Godzilla on the spot. Why should we believe that? Because the people developing the technology are scientists, they wear white coats and, shudder, they do it for money. Have we never seen a monster movie? Are we that complacent?

There is genetic modification happening all the time, the world we experience is built on genetic modification and novel characteristics. We cope. There is no reason to fear that modified genes will take over wild populations any more than we need fear our domestic dogs breeding with wolves and turning wolf packs into dachshunds, greyhounds or bulldogs. What is the worst that could happen? Roundup-Ready™ genes migrate into weed species rendering one weedkiller ineffective. It would be an own goal but hardly the end of civilization as we know it.

The veggie anti-reason feminazis have been eating genetically modified ingredients for years and imposing it on the rest of us too, in the form of “vegetarian cheese”, made with bovine genes transplanted into micro-organisms. I have even seen this feminazi abomination appearing on a pepperoni pizza! By some double standard double-think it is OK to have GM foods of a particular kind, it is not a case of

Vegetarian good, GM bad

but

Vegetarian good, GM vegetarian better.

Oink.

“GM” is, like radiation, an unseen enemy. It easily taps into the built in fear we humans have of “cooties”, we do not need to be told about infection and its dangers, that fear is instinctive. We know that rotten meat touching good meat will “send it bad”, pass on the unseen infection. That fear is built in to us in a way that we do not have fear of horizontal speed although we are afraid of heights. Standing on a narrow ledge ten feet off the ground makes us nervous while travelling along in a thin metal box at seventy miles per hour does not register with us as in the slightest bit dangerous until we sense a loss of control. We are not afraid of guns but we are afraid of spiders. Evolution has equipped us with certain instinctive fears that are useful. We didn't need microscopes to know to be afraid of the contagion of plague, our natural feeling for the idea of infection helped protect us despite our ignorance. Now this instinctive fear is counter-productive. A little knowledge can be very dangerous. We expect unseen agents of evil such as radiation and “GM” (whatever that is) to be able to spread like a bacterial infection, causing disproportionate havoc. A failure to grasp why people see GM as dangerous leaves us powerless to do anything about this thoroughly misplaced fear.

…

There is nothing those people who enjoy eco-protests enjoy more than hinting at the dangers of invisible harmful agencies that can be blamed fairly and squarely at men, governments or greedy corporations. Fears should never be spelt out in black and white. Ellipses make the best fears. Slippery slopes to nightmare scenarios that are never quite fleshed out. This is classic Hitchcock tactics, never show the knife sticking in the flesh, the audience can imagine it in much more graphic detail than you could ever manage.

GM is unknown, new, man made (in every sense) and it makes the perfect target for self-important self-appointed eco-warriors. It is unknown, obscure, unobservable. It is as good a plague as any microbe, witchcraft or conspiracy. If you want a reason to justify unreasonable fear it looks like it has been designed for the job.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited