they make plants that produce chemicals to kill pests, with possibly unknown health effects (although at this point these effects have been studied pretty thoroughly)

The effects and method of action of BT genes and their subsequent Cry proteins are well known, understood, and regularly used even in organic agriculture. All plants naturally produce their own chemicals/pesticides, otherwise pests would just be eating the shit out of them and they'd go extinct. Adding one more already naturally occurring pesticide that is demonstrably unharmful to humans is really no sweat.

they make plants that are resistant to herbicides, which promotes the use of these herbicides, which promotes the development of superweeds

Herbicides such as glyphosate were in use long before genetic technology came along, and for good reason: it's relatively benign compared to other more harsh and toxic herbicides that it replaced, and it was much more successful because it was broad spectrum and could kill a wide variety of pest plants rather than having to use two or three different herbicides to accomplish the same. It's for all these reasons that it was chosen as the target for resistance engineering, not the other way around. The idea of "superweeds" is a little ridiculous because at worst, weeds become resistant to glyphosate and we're simply right back where we started before. It's not like these weeds are suddenly going to be super hardy and resistant to everything and begin taking over the world. They'll simply be resistant to glyphosate.

they patent everything and engage in licensing schemes that are really harmful to small farmers.

When you're spending hundreds of thousands to millions on R&D, you kinda want to protect your investment. Plant patents have been around a lot longer than GMO technology anyway. Farmers are falling over each other trying to buy GMO seeds, and no one is forcing them to sign contracts that they don't want to. Anyone is free to go and buy non-GMO seeds wherever they like. Farmers aren't doing this, of course, because the GMO traits allow them to get better yields with fewer inputs, thus making better profits. GMO crops hurting small farmers is laughable to the farmers using them. Unless you think farmers are stupid hicks who don't know how to math.

but merely by making it more resistant to pesticide, so that they can smother it,

I'm sure this is a waste of time replying to an ignorant Anonymous Coward, but do you have any idea what level of spray actually hits fields on a per acre or even per square foot basis? I bet if you ran the actual numbers, you'd be dumbfounded at just how little an amount something like Roundup is required to have the desired affect. We're literally talking about oz. per acre, diluted into gallons of water. It'd be quite a stretch to call that "smothering".

Also glyphosate as a chemical is now off patent and anyone can make and sell it.

There's no GURT technology currently on the market. And no, there's no reputable science saying that somehow transgenic technology is unsafe for bees or anything else. There's not even a proposed mechanism on how this could possibly be.

(the name escaped me at the moment)

Teosinte

Knowing the genome is pretty much irrelevant to selective breeding since SB is based on phenotypical traits, not genomic ones. If you have the genome, why would just completely ignore that information and continue to do things the slow, random way when you could alter exactly the genes you want in exactly the way you want to without affecting the rest and getting lots of unintended consequences? No, you don't have to splice genes to make improvements in the same way you don't have to use a computer to calculate a spreadsheet because you can do the same thing with pen and paper. It just doesn't make sense to continue doing things the old way when we have understood, proven methods of doing things better. The general population is pretty ignorant when it comes to genetics, but geneticists do kinda know what they are doing...

Obviously, everything is impossible until it isn't.

And right now, that's absolutely the case.

Let's stop all funding and research on everything that isn't economically feasible right now!

This article from 2 years ago and its accompanying chart make a good case that we'd have fusion already if we as a civilization seriously funded it. As you can see on the chart, actual funding towards fusion research has been laughable and of course, here we are still "30 years away".

That'd be a hoot: they'd open the box only to find a dead cat inside, answering that question...

Monsanto suicide genes

A myth. Show us where you can buy these, please.

BT soyabeans, which causes all manner of illnesses in humans and animals

Myth #2. BT toxic is completely inactive in mammalian guts due to the acidic environment and lack of appropriate receptors to latch onto. Cry proteins are digested like any others.

Maybe next time, have the first clue what you're talking about before you spout oft-repeated bullshit.

Computers didn't exist in 1789 either, so kindly get off the computer and from now on please make all your freedom of speech Slashdot comments available on paper only, or accept the freedom of speech limitations that the government deems acceptable in current technology.

Have you priced out autopilot airliners, military hardened equipment, medical implants, or other mission critical has-to-work hardware? That level of certainty usually comes with a price tag far, far beyond the commercially available version. So now only rich people can afford guns.

In the martial arts communities, videos of gun disarm techniques are always taken with a grain of salt and it is usually understood that when trying to grapple a gun away from someone, there's probably still a good 50/50 chance you're going to get shot trying to take someone's gun away from them even for a trained self-defense professional. So I don't think most people have to worry about having their guns grabbed out of their hands and turned against them. This is also a terrible, terrible idea for the 95 lb woman who carries a gun as an equalizer to keep from getting raped by the 200 lb guy who manages to take away the smart gun from her because it wouldn't authenticate in time/improper grip to enable firing/RF interference/etc.

William Blackstone might want to have a word with you. Should we really be worried about rounding up a whole bunch of "bad guys" to keep them from doing bad things because of the chance that a few of them might be innocent? Think of the children!

Education obviously hasn't worked...

That's probably because gun education has typically been removed from schools. It used to be schools had gun clubs and kids were regularly seen carrying their rifles around campus. These were people that were taught how to properly use and respect a gun. Now, public gun education pretty much amounts to "abstinence only!" sex-ed. How's that working out for us?

New Jersey since 2002 has been waiting for smart guns to be available so their law can kick in and make them mandatory for all guns sold there. Police, of course, will be exempt from this law. Imagine that.

Because now we get to live in a world that's minus one piece of shit baby rapist/killer.