Be fair: I would have acted the same way if my local wine bar had run out of 2010 Grand Cru Bordeaux.

Neils thoughts on the viral video

*** August 3, 2014 -- Anatomy of a GMO Commentary ****
Ten days ago, this brief clip of me was posted by somebody.

It contains my brief [2min 20sec] response to a question posed by a French journalist, after a talk I gave on the Universe. He found me at the post-talk book signing table. (Notice the half-dozen ready & willing pens.) The clip went mildly viral (rising through a half million right now) with people weighing in on whether they agree with me or not.

Some comments...

1) The journalist posted the question in French. I don't speak French, so I have no memory of how I figured out that was asking me about GMOs. Actually I do know some French words like Bordeaux, and Bourgogne, and Champagne, etc.

2) Everything I said is factual. So there's nothing to disagree with other than whether you should actually "chill out" as I requested of the viewer in my last two words of the clip.

3) Had I given a full talk on this subject, or if GMOs were the subject of a sit-down interview, then I would have raised many nuanced points, regarding labeling, patenting, agribusiness, monopolies, etc. I've noticed that almost all objections to my comments center on these other issues.

4) I offer my views on these nuanced issues here, if anybody is interested:
a- Patented Food Strains: In a free market capitalist society, which we have all "bought" into here in America, if somebody invents something that has market value, they ought to be able to make as much money as they can selling it, provided they do not infringe the rights of others. I see no reason why food should not be included in this concept.
b- Labeling: Since practically all food has been genetically altered from nature, if you wanted labeling I suppose you could demand it, but then it should be for all such foods. Perhaps there could be two different designations: GMO-Agriculture GMO-Laboratory.
c- Non-perennial Seed Strains: It's surely legal to sell someone seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, requiring that the farmer buy seed stocks every year from the supplier. But when sold to developing country -- one struggling to become self-sufficient -- the practice is surely immoral. Corporations, even when they work within the law, should not be held immune from moral judgement on these matters.
d- Monopolies are generally bad things in a free market. To the extent that the production of GMOs are a monopoly, the government should do all it can to spread the baseline of this industry. (My favorite monopoly joke ever, told by Stephen Wright: "I think it's wrong that the game Monopoly is sold by only one company")
e- Safety: Of course new foods should be tested for health risks, regardless of their origin. That's the job of the Food and Drug Administration (in the USA). Actually, humans have been testing food, even without the FDA ,since the dawn of agriculture. Whenever a berry or other ingested plant killed you, you knew not to serve it to you family.
f- Silk Worms: I partly mangled my comments on this. Put simply, commercial Silk Worms have been genetically modified by centuries of silk trade, such that they cannot survive in the wild. Silk Worms currently exist only to serve the textile industry. Just as Milk Cows are bred with the sole purpose of providing milk to humans. There are no herds of wild Milk Cows terrorizing the countryside.

5) If your objection to GMOs is the morality of selling non-prerennial seed stocks, then focus on that. If your objection to GMOs is the monopolistic conduct of agribusiness, then focus on that. But to paint the entire concept of GMO with these particular issues is to blind yourself to the underlying truth of what humans have been doing -- and will continue to do -- to nature so that it best serves our survival. That's what all organisms do when they can, or would do, if they could. Those that didn't, have gone extinct extinct.

In life, be cautious of how broad is the brush with which you paint the views of those you don't agree with.

Respectfully Submitted
-NDTyson

@ChaosEngine

Wine-tasting is mostly in our minds:


"In one test, Brochet included fifty-four wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn’t stop the experts from describing the “red” wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert said that it was “jammy,”5 while another enjoyed its “crushed red fruit.”

"Another test that Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle bore the label of a fancy grand cru, the other of an ordinary vin de table. Although they were being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the bottles nearly opposite descriptions. The grand cru was summarized as being “agreeable,” “woody,” “complex,” “balanced,” and “rounded,” while the most popular adjectives for the vin de table included “weak,” “short,” “light,” “flat,” and “faulty.”"

New Yorker

>> ^bareboards2:
Usually having to hit up Google to understand a joke undermines it.... not this time.
>> ^radx:
That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.



Lol. Usually not getting the joke undermines it

Usually having to hit up Google to understand a joke undermines it.... not this time.


>> ^radx:

That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.

That's what "Fall Gelb" was all about -- dinner with Sandrine at "Le Chapon Fin" in Bordeaux.

Favourites

1) Season - Autumn (which intrigues me)
2) Place in the world - woods. coast. bluebells.
3) Children's book - Magnus Powermouse
4) TV Series - I collect them (alias/24/buffy/angel/babylon5/west wing) but possibly west wing if pushed. (edit FireFly)
5) Word - nembler
6) Film - LOTRO-(extended edition all 3 parts as 1)
7) Curse - bollocks. it sounds good. satisfying. improves with volume.
Creature - Smokey
9) Past time - completing System Shock 1 for the first time on 4/4/4/3
10)Person - ... I have many important people, but I would like to have 1

Which one?

11) Dog or cat - Cat. Yes they are evil bastards. Evil bastards need love too.
12) Sweet or savoury - savoury. Take my chocolate and I will eat you for it.
13) Cereal or Toast - Hot toast with butter and things made by someone else is wonderous
14) Tan or pale - pale. I think. Try me.
15) Shoes or barefoot - barefoot when warm and soft and nice
16) Desktop or laptop - Desktop. Laps are for other things
17) Drive or walk - Drive. But walking to work is great.
18) Drama or comedy - Good drama lasts. Good comedy was funny.
19) Sex or food - Both (sex involves eating)
20) Futurama or Simpsons - Futurama. Simpsons hasn't been funny in a long time. it is tiered. it should mumble quietly in an old peoples home.

The Sift

21) Your fave personal submission - I love that this sifted
22) A great comment on one of your vids - This comment by Constitutional_Patriot
23) Most off the wall member - I dont keep my member on the wall? oh, VS, sorry...
24) Favourite user name -
25) Your most used channel - comedy/music
26) Personal dumbass moment - submitting a vid to rant about something, and then deciding the vid was itself guilty of thing it/I was ranting about and discarding it.
27) Best avatar - probably mlx or oxdottir
28) Partner in crime - my15Min for TED pimping might be closest
29) Do people offline know of your sift problem - Yes. My t-shirt tells them so.
30) Idea for the site - Sifter dating.

About you

31) Where do you live - Penryn Cornwall, UK
32) Smoker/non-smoker - Non. Have smoked cigars for the taste. I stopped when passive smoking from friends ceased being unpleasant...
33) Left or right handed - right
34) Hair colour - brown. whats left. or strange colours in the beard.
35) Relationship status - interested
36) How tall - 5-10 with heals
37) Children - Not yet.
38) Ever had an operation - 6 ish. (and this isnt a pissing competition but for me septoplasty was the least. GA and a bit of bleeding)
39) Best feature - feel free to find out and complement me
40) Use four words to describe yourself - my dream was nice</yawning>

If you could...what, who, when etc

41) Bring a famous person back from the dead - Elvis. he could convince people he really died. only he could.
42) Give 50 grand to any charity - cancer research
43) Send someone on a one way ticket to the moon - me!
44) Relive a moment in your life - smokey
45) Have a superpower -
flight
46) Find out one thing you've always wanted to know - did she?
47) Have the opposite gender deal with something you have to - gwizz mrfisk and farhad have this covered, but AC's would not be a fair exchange
48) Be president for one hour - release any sealed evidence on the bush years incompetence (including anything incriminating a certain my blair)
49) Delete a period in history - -10 AD to +10 AD and such like
50) Achieve one thing - contentment

Thank you. Very nice. Sure beats looking at a brick wall.

In reply to this comment by Thylan:
I couldn't find the documentary (if i remember it was an article spot during the BBC's week long coverage of the Chelsea flower show. either this years or the year before's. Not the kind of thing that gets put on the net However, he does have a fair bit of web presence, and i found this for you:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Vertical-garden-Bordeaux

In reply to this comment by persephone:
Thylan, any chance of finding/posting the documentary you saw? Love to see it.

In reply to this comment by Thylan:
Consider this installed on a roof, two rows, vertically aligned strips (so lots of strips). The rows are aligned E/W such that the sun traversal goes between them. This means they cast very small shadows, relative to being N/S aligned. The space between, you use for solar capture, either as electricity generation or heat capture for water heating/storage, or both in a hybrid.

Then use nets/clay on the walls, and plant greenery. Alolw rainwater to be recycled feeding it. Saw a documentary showing such buildings and they looked great and had a big positive impact on people, visually etc. Masked the building and looked like a jungle canopy. Almost completely self sustaining and low maintenance too.

We are going to be technically able to do lots of interesting engineering things in construction. But will we on mass? Thats a cultural question, and hard to predict, and is probably reliant on mass production techniques, and financial incentives to start the investments.

I couldn't find the documentary (if i remember it was an article spot during the BBC's week long coverage of the Chelsea flower show. either this years or the year before's. Not the kind of thing that gets put on the net However, he does have a fair bit of web presence, and i found this for you:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Vertical-garden-Bordeaux

In reply to this comment by persephone:
Thylan, any chance of finding/posting the documentary you saw? Love to see it.

In reply to this comment by Thylan:
Consider this installed on a roof, two rows, vertically aligned strips (so lots of strips). The rows are aligned E/W such that the sun traversal goes between them. This means they cast very small shadows, relative to being N/S aligned. The space between, you use for solar capture, either as electricity generation or heat capture for water heating/storage, or both in a hybrid.

Then use nets/clay on the walls, and plant greenery. Alolw rainwater to be recycled feeding it. Saw a documentary showing such buildings and they looked great and had a big positive impact on people, visually etc. Masked the building and looked like a jungle canopy. Almost completely self sustaining and low maintenance too.

We are going to be technically able to do lots of interesting engineering things in construction. But will we on mass? Thats a cultural question, and hard to predict, and is probably reliant on mass production techniques, and financial incentives to start the investments.

No shit.....that's like getting a dalmation after seeing a Disney moooovie!!!

What wine is worth drinking if it ain't cab sav, bordeaux, beaujolais , or perhaps, some Rhine river spats....Bleleegg on mixed up grape concraptions!!!!

At 0:50 the car coming out of the building is actually part of the construction of the parking lot. It's a joke made by the arcitecht and can be seen in Bordeaux France.