Genetic Modification

GMO.

It is, for some people, a curse word/phrase.

I've not really cared whether something has, or is, a genetically modified product/organism, I suppose partly, because I'm a science fiction fan. Between the Augments, the Denobulans, and just seeing all the kinds of things that we have done with genes already that have made human lives more comfortable, I haven't seen what.

Besides the Augments. They're something wrong, at least in their tyranny. And Linnea of Stargate SG-1. She's kind of evil. And Hathor too. Yes, those are examples of when we don't watch ourselves with the progress we seek to make.

Alas.

The bananas we eat are Cavendish, which did not exist in nature. We made them that way in efforts of genetic engineering (though, because it's botany, we don't really think about it that way). I hear all kinds of things about "frankenfish" (though, like the origins of "corrective rape", this too is something I've not actively gone researching just yet) and how people hate the thought of them. I do think of that term as a charged buzzword people use to engender automatic despise of the idea (like Obamacare).

We genetically engineer viruses and bacteria to produce vaccines, mass-produce silk, and try to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes. These are all so we can be comfortable, or not die... Hell, we're all [eyeroll] living longer partly because of these things.

Is it more correct for genetic engineering to happen over millennia that to artificially give it a boost? Gregor Mendel kind of did that with his experiments.

My moderation wants to keep it in check, and I suppose after thinking about how moderate I am and how I want things in check, perhaps I'm leaning towards labeling. But people shouldn't care that it is a GMO, because there are plenty of things that are without the labeling anyway.

6 alternatives to help you ditch cable television

Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers: I'm seriously considering it, and it comes more each day. I've been thinking about it for a while, actually. I thought about it when I'd gone to North Carolina for a weekend and realised that I'd not turned on the television once.

I realise that every weekend, when Saturdays and Sundays generally happen with the TV off. The only thing I think about now is Stargate, and it's probable I can get that on the Internet somehow as well. The Internet is the way of the future, is it not? I mean, the moment that we decide to give up our consumerism and develop ourselves instead for the sake of human improvement, we'll progress, right?

I think I'm going to do it. Sorry, Comcast. You've just lost a little revenue.

Interviews: All Good Things ... (Brad Wright - August 2008)

GateWorld: Aww... crap!