no need to put the iphone down, there is a camera there too, available to the same intellegence agencies.

one nation under durress.

Would you be behind a movement to label all foods that contain "Chemicals" with a label that says "Contains Chemicals"?

No, "contains chemicals" doesn't tell me what's in the food.

You may not realize this, but there's already a law that requires food to be labeled for the chemicals that are in it. It's been in place for decades, and somehow, the world hasn't ended and the food companies are still making food and people are still eating.

Have you looked at a package of potato chips recently? Do you think the words "BUTYLATED HYDROXYANISOLE" on the label just got there by magic? Do you think consumers have a right to know that PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL is in the food they eat? People know that shit is bad for you, but they still eat potato chips. So what exactly is the harm in people knowing whether or not that styrofoam package contains corn that is from a genetically modified organism? What are you so afraid of?

Brother, that's the truth.

Even worse, is that we have works that have been in the public domain, sometimes for decades, and all of a sudden are protected under copyright again. It's a total scam and it's absolutely doing damage to future generations and to culture generally.

Personally, I wan organic food labeled as having been grown in 400-700 nm radiation.

You have the right to make your consumer decisions based on any criterion you want.

But there's no valid decision a consumer could make with a GMO label

You still don't get it. Consumer decisions don't need to be based on "valid information", they just need to be based on true information. It why someone picks a Chevy over a Ford or Kleenex tissue over Puffs. It's preference. If you're selling a product, you don't get to decide for your customers. They get to decide based on whatever criteria they choose. If they think the Kleenex label is better for their needs than a Puffs label, then the only thing that matters is that when they order Kleenex, they get Kleenex and not Puffs. Because they're the ones paying.

If I decide to buy a product made locally instead of a nearly identical one made somewhere else, there might be a whole host of reasons for that decision. But what can't happen in a "free market" is for something to be sold as made in Chicago when it's really made in Dallas, just because the producer believes that the Dallas product is just as good as the one made in Chicago.

It's not GMO-free food (or I guess food with GMOs) that people want, it's the labeling. Since consumers can see what foods are labeled with, they have the information to make a buying decision.

Now you've appointed yourself the person who decides what people want?

We're done here. You don't believe in "free markets" or in people's ability to have agency over the way they spend their money. You've become such a zealot for GMOs that you're prepared to take away that agency in the name of...something.

I cannot have a meaningful discussion with someone who believes people must not have certain information because you don't believe they "need" it. That's not "pro-Science", that's anti-Science.

If you're saying it's a market decision, then the market will work it out, right?

Markets are only efficient when all the parties have good information. And "markets" and "marketing" do not refer to the same thing.

Withholding a specific bit of information that consumers say they want is a sure way to make sure "the market" won't function efficiently.

Do you understand?

It's not like a label "Contains Asbestos" that would signify a clear ingredient with a clear health disadvantage.

I already said that for me, it's not an issue of health. It's a simple consumer decision that includes whether or not I like a company or industry's business practices. In your brave new world, am I allowed to make a decision based on that information or not? Am I allowed to make consumer decisions based on whatever I want or must I stick to your prescribed set of approved parameters?

Putting "GMO" on food would just confuse people even more

Then it's an issue of marketing and consumer education. Not of science, There is no "scientific" reason to withhold a piece of information from a consumer. Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to upwards of 90% of consumers who are demanding GMO labeling (and over 65% of those people want those labels to be mandated by law).

When did you get appointed the steward of what information people are allowed or not allowed to have?

Does this mean that there will be an influx of unemployed Norwegians with deep voices?

My question is why you're trying to use a legal argument on a topic that should be decided on the scientific basis of the things;

No, no, no. It's not a legal argument, it's not a scientific argument, it's a consumer argument.

Consumers are the ones paying for the product and the label, and they overwhelmingly want to know if there are GMOs in them. If you and the chemical industry believe that GMOs are getting a bad rap, then that's a marketing issue. But strangely, instead of spending the money on marketing, they're spending the money on doing everything they can to keep people from finding out the ineluctable fact that there are GMOs in their food.

GMOs are not the first product that consumers have been skeptical of. But they're the first ones that the industry decided the solution was not better marketing, but rather obfuscation, misdirection and hiding the provenance of their product. Don't you think that's an interesting development?

Mandatory labeling of GMO's is not realy different to what happened during the second world war, when Jews were forced to wear a yellow hand band.

Mister Godwin, I see you raising your hand there in the back. Do you have something to add?

Should we label every scary thing in the future?

You're not paying attention. GMOs should be labeled not because they're scary, but because consumers want to know.

Consumers are the ones paying for every bit of research, every step in the production process. They're the ones paying for the lawyers, they're the ones paying for the lobbyists and they're the ones paying for the labels that are put on the product.

Do you get that? GMOs should be labeled because the people who are paying for them want them to be labeled. Why is that so hard for the waves of GMO supporters who mobilize whenever there is this discussion to understand?

That's the question of a chemical designed to have a pharmacological effect that they didn't know how to properly test at the time.

Oh, I see. That was back when Science didn't know what they were doing, unlike today, when Science never errs (except the thousands of pharmaceutical products that have been taken off the market within a few years of studies showing they were completely safe).

So tell me, what was the year when Science figured everything out?

There is nowhere "Listen and Believe" is used more than in the argument over GMOs.

Why should that info be stamped on a food package?

Because the consumers, the ones paying for every single bit of the stuff overwhelmingly want to know.

I cannot think of a better reason.

Every single poll taken has over 90% of consumers wanting GMOs to be labeled, and in every single poll consumers want GMOs to be required by law to be labeled.

The fact that state initiatives to this effect have lost is testament to the power of corporate money in elections.

So why would he bring race into this issue at all? What does race have to do with GMOs, except pure misdirection and obfuscation.

If your analogy to learning about how your food was grown is somebody's race, you are too far gone to participate in this discussion.

That has scary words like "Genetic" and "Organism" in it which people will be afraid of, same way they're afraid when you tell them their pie has "Chemicals" in it.

You are still describing a marketing issue. Not a scientific issue, but one of public perception.

So why hasn't the GMO industry spent the same amount of money teaching the public about the wonders of their shitty tasteless sweet corn and cardboard tomatoes to the public instead of the billions they spend trying to hide the fact of this foods provenance?

Remember, we're not talking about some natural resource like water or air, we're talking about a goddamn consumer product. Nothing more. Not the cure for cancer or world hunger or the common cold. We're talking about something that has a label and a price and sits on the shelf at the Piggly Wiggly. So, considering the fact that the consumers are the ones who are paying the ENTIRE bill for this stuff then why is the GMO industry so dead set against them knowing what they're buying?

And calling them something that sounds scary to the ignorant, while at the same time leaving out other information that could be relevant

If it "sounds scary to the ignorant" then isn't it just a matter of marketing?

Why do you think the chemical industry spends billions on keeping GMO labels off of food instead of using that money to market their "completely safe and delicious" genetically modified plants to consumers? Why are they so heavily invested in keeping a simple fact from their consumers instead of in teaching them how healthy they are for their kids?