http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060514/ap_on_sc/biopharming_dilemma
"A tiny biosciences company is developing a promising drug to fight diarrhea, a scourge among babies in the developing world, but it has made an astonishing number of powerful enemies because it grows the experimental drug in rice genetically engineered with a human gene."
"Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.
But farmers, environmentalists and others fear that such medicinal crops will mix with conventional crops, making them unsafe to eat."
That is an interesting dilemma.
A dilemma is usually defined as:
> A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or mutually exclusive.
Let's see, the consequences of one choice is: not saving millions of dying children. The consequences of the other choice is: Uh, some people who are superstitious about genes would feel uneasy?
but what if they're right? it's like in the movies when people say that the people who oppose a certian thing are crazy and next thing you know you have a bunch of dinosaurs running around an island eating people.
Wait, is it the rice or the babies that will turn into dinosaurs?
Maybe both? And they could fight it out? That would be awesome.
>>4
Wasn't the disaster in Jurassic Park caused by a human's greed?
Off-topic, how can one be killed by diarrhea? It hurts, but it don't hurt that bad.
Welcome to living in the first world, where common diseases don't FUCKING KILL YOU DEAD.
Most people don't live here.
Do you think that Japan is a good country?
>>all
>>9
Truth
>>3
AHEM "But farmers, environmentalists and others fear that such medicinal crops will mix with conventional crops, making them unsafe to eat."
>>10 is a minor kami
How, exactly, would that make them unsafe to eat?
>>14
GM food is the cooties of agriculture.
Hahahahahah!
if >>10 is a Kami
>>8 is a bleeding pantheon
no wait, pantheon is greek.
anyway thank you for posting that. I'm getting pretty sick of yuppie ethics. You know, the ones who wax elloquent about "ethics". You don't want to try to cure disease (via genetics or animal reasearch)? Really cute, considering that you'll most likely never need it. The worst that ever happens is that they read about an "epidemic" in the Wall Street Journal, maybe sigh sadly as they turn the pages to read Ann Landers or the comics. Or if they bother look at the corpses of the people on CNN, quickly forget about it as they turn on the latest "game show" where people eat insects or play with silver briefcases.
I see the same on both liberal and conservative sides in America. Mostly, we're a bunch of idiots who know nothing of real life, argueing about the ethics of situations we'll never be in, as through being rich gives us the right to decide life and death for some boy in Columbia who digs through the trash for his lunch. I know a vegan or two that would probably shriek at the boy and call him evil if he DARED to dig a crust of ham sandwich out of the trash.
Of course when it comes to downloading Porn or games or music without paying, we don't bother with ethics.
Allow me to sum that up as: "Vegans are people who have never had to go hungry for a single day of their lives."
well, not really, but that's true too.
Just that most of our so-called "ethicists" have never missed a meal, or wanted for anything. They oppose certain research because it offends them. Whatever.
Ok let me try to explain myself a bit better.
The problem with most Western "ethicists" -- mostly the ameteurs although some of the professional ones as well -- is that the situation is always too abstracted. Almost as if the people in those situations don't really matter. Or if they matter, they matter in the abstract sense. Not just in Human Rice, but in Environmental issues, Stem Cells, Animal Rights, and welfare.
The people who oppose the research 'cause it makes them uncomfortable, well you can be pretty sure that neither they nor their family has EVER had a life threatening illness. So they feel free to restrict research in all sorts of ways. But they read something about the research and decided it was "icky". It wouldn't be "icky" if it would save their kids or their neck.
Or the ones championing welfare cuts. You can pretty well bet that they've not spent any time on welfare. The worst "poverty" they've had is not being able to afford some big ticket luxury item. So since they've apparently been able to convince themselves that the poor live quite well on 1,600 a month (Federal Poverty level).
It's the same old thing. We live like lords and decide for the peasants, but not as though those peasants were real living humans. And not only that, we can't be troubled to think of their needs. We'd hang 'em for entering the "King's Hunting Ground", no matter if they have to to survive.
>>20
While it is soething to be scorned, it's impossible not to be a hypocrite. Call it evolutionary selfishness, or human nature, or the devil's work, and everyone does it; the powerful are simply better.
This is why the argument of "put yourself in my shoes" isn't a particularly good one, even if it does appeal to compassion. It's just as easy to say to the powerless if they had the power they'd do the same.
Cold, but realistic no?
>..are shitting themselves to death
Ahaha.
>>22
Grow up d00d.
Cholera and Dysentary break out fairly regularly in the third world. You basicly dehydrate yourself to death -- the same type of death you'd get if you were in the desert without water. Not comfortable.
I can't answer what another person would do in that situation. I hope they'd give a crap about me. And really the point of having morals is to decide what we should do, not what we do do. That's why we moralize. But if our moralizing becomes a exercise in Vulcan logic, where everything is an abstract theory, it's useless.
Continuing from
>>23
What I mean is that we can't use ethical theories as cover. We can't act as though those we're deciding <i>for</i> have no thoughts or feelings of their own. They aren't Sims or other video game characters, they aren't figments of our imagination they're real people with real lives. To take cover behind a theory when deciding whether someone else can be "ethically" helped is cowardly. The theory is nice and neat and comfortable. No messy corpses from easily treatable diseases, or civil wars we can't be assed to stop.
It might be ethical to ignore the people needing help, in favor of some theory of the day. But it's inhuman as well as cowardly. It's inhuman because it ignores the people that the theory would hurt. It never gives them a voice to say "wait -- I don't want to (in the words of the Slashdot Rant) shit myself to death". And it's cowardly because we in the west lack the courage to look those people in the eye as we tell them to die -- we may read a report in the paper (if that) about an outbreak of Cholera in some far away country. That's a lot easier to take than being there watching people die. If you're going to cite some beardo theory as to why it's unethical to help them, and you haven't got the courage to look those unfortunate people in the eye, you're a coward, imo.
I wackyparsed the title of this thread as "Hunan Rice." `\(º_o)/'
That's nothing. There's a chinese place in my hometown next to a vetranary clinic. I think they get meat very cheap.
http://wikitravel.org/en/South_Korea#Barbeques
Yes, it's true — Koreans eat dog. While theoretically illegal, in practice the law is not enforced and dog meat soup (보신탕 bosintang) remains a popular dish among those looking to improve male virility or just beat the summer heat. Another option is suyuk (수육), which is just meat boiled with spices to eliminate smell and make the meat tender. But rest assured, it can be an expensive delicacy (very expensive!) and you're not likely to end up chowing on Snoopy by accident. As Korean resturants often specialise in one one type of food you will have to actively seek out dishes containing dog meat. Bosintang can be eaten for as little as 8000 won.
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I'm surprised that no one mentioned soylant green.
More like soylent grain amirite?