Wow... So many great points here.
And lots missed by others.

@ChaosEngine I like you too. But the next posts after yours explains my point better. @Eukelek got the point correctly.
(The fact you don't eat it, or your local farm doesn't grow GM is telling and hypocritical)

There is a massive difference between selection using natural processes and GENETIC ENGINEERING.
One will only produce offspring that are genetically compatible.
The other is a crap shoot producing mixes of different taxonomy.
For fucks sake when could A FARMER BREED A MOUSE WITH A JELLYFISH, or mix SPIDER GENES WITH GOATS.
That shit is fucked up and only the tip of the iceberg.

You really want MONSANTO creating NEW SPECIES OF PLANT THAT ARE STRONGER THAN THEIR NATURAL COUNTERPARTS AND LACED WITH TOXINS AND PESTICIDES ????
It was Monsanto that developed AGENT ORANGE, and PCB's which THEY ALSO DENIED WAS HARMFUL EVEN THOUGH IT IS MASSIVELY CANCER CAUSING. They buried every study showing it was carcinogenic.


@nock . Yes I'm sure the medical profession has even crazier biology going on. But I would only use that shit IF I WAS GOING TO DIE.
NOBODY NEEDS GMO.
Now the medi-corps are using super viruses as vectors for 'custom' dna treatments.
Considering that the U.S. CDC was just admonished for improper practices contains viruses. How long before there is an incident that is completely synthetic (man-made) and completely irreversible.

@RedSky Sure Africa should grow whatever it needs to survive. But don't expect an export market for gmo.

Calling this EIA is a bit incorrect. These are different species and any inter-specific breeding that may have happened after the video cut out would not lead to viable offspring. Also, two males, so again no viable offspring. Also a cautionary tale about trying to take a dump in the donkey pasture.

I'm not trying to be a hater, but I do want people to get what they deserve...and in this instance I believe those that ignore and deny that AGW is real and in part their fault (and every thing I read and all actual scientists I talk to agree that nearly ALL scientists agree that AGW is real and happening now, contrary to your claim that only 4% agree) deserve to have their offspring eat them alive when the food runs out due to their denial based actions.
Really, you claim you personally spoke to "most climate scientists"?!? So now I know for certain that YOU are just a bold faced liar, because that's an impossibility. ;-)
But I already did my hair and put my party dress on, I'm crashing your party! I'll hide among the other scientists and you'll never notice me until the lampshade hat goes on and I climb onto the bar to dance badly to Bolero.
I am 100% certain that either you or Obama has made a mistake here...4% is an exaggeration of the number of scientists that DON'T theorize that AGW is real, not the other way around. Someone got the wires crossed.
It's a poor argument, when presented with facts that are contrary to your theory, to reply with 'who cares what you think'...but perhaps the best argument against my statements that you have?
I do walk to work, in my own yard. I have a vegi garden and an orchard. I do eat mostly just my own vegis, but not completely, there's also chicken and pork that I don't raise myself (but source locally). My beef intake is miniscule. I drive minimally, well under 5K per year (still adding to the problem, agreed, but far less than average), I don't have children (the best and most useful thing one can do for the massively overpopulated planet IMO) and try at every opportunity to convince others to not have them either, I do have solar panels AND hot water tubes, I do grow >90% of my (and my wife's) food. Most of those things I do because they save me money, because as I said, I have no personal incentive to "save the planet" for more than 40+- years, and I also don't think it's possible at this point. I can try to not add to the problem as much as possible, but at the same time I don't let my methods rule or ruin my life. It's my opinion that the time to minimize AGW was in the 80's, when it was completely ignored, and that now it's far too late to minimize things, the system reacts slowly and the last century of CO2 (and others) will continue to effect the system long after we stop adding more...and I think we're already to the point where that unavoidable rise in temp will melt methalhydrates, giving us boiling oceans on fire and at least another 5 deg of near instant temperature rise (likely far more). The tipping point was back when we could avoid that, and I have been convinced by data that that time came and went long ago and now we're hosed.
I will concede that the ONN is a GREAT place for 'news'.

Bats are awesome. they are also, atleast in europe, protected, and illegal to kill. Bat species make up 1/4 of all mammal species, the overwhelming majority of them are insectivores and completely harmless to humans (or cats) Despite their small size, they only get 1 or 2 offspring a year, and can live 20-30 years! If you have one in your roof, like under the rooftiles, Keep it! Bats eat 3000 insects EVERY NIGHT. and they never chew or dig or fuck up your house in any way. Their excrements are also almost odor-free and dust-like, so no trouble, unless there are hundreds of bats.

And if you would like to listen to all these songs in this list on spotify
https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:user:126633862:playlist:6g85gv0Z2sU9Jq1DveZBwR

1. Cannonball - The Breeders
2. The New Pollution - Beck
3. Battle of Who Could Care Less - Ben Folds Five
4. Mrs. Robinson - The Lemonheads
5. Push Th' Little Daisies - Live - Ween, The Shit Creek Boys
6. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand - Primitive Radio Gods
7. Queer - Garbage
8. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
9. Cut Your Hair (Remastered) - Pavement
10. In The Meantime - Spacehog
11. Undone -- The Sweater Song - Weezer
12. I Alone - Live
13. Got You (Where I Want You) - The Flys
14. One - U2
15. Jeremy - Pearl Jam
16. Stutter - Elastica
17. Not an Addict - K's Choice
18. The Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson
19. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
20. Man In The Box - Alice In Chains
21. Soul To Squeeze - Red Hot Chili Peppers
22. Lithium - Nirvana
23. What's Up - 4 Non Blondes
24. Laid - James
25. Wynona's Big Brown Beaver - Primus
26. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite - R.E.M.
27. People Of The Sky - Sloan
28. Good - Better Than Ezra
29. Gel - Collective Soul
30. Zombie - The Cranberries
31. Girls And Boys - Blur
32. Dyslexic Heart - Paul Westerberg
33. Your New Cuckoo - The Cardigans
34. Get Off This - Cracker
35. A Long December- Counting Crows
36. Self Esteem - The Offspring
37. Don't Speak - No Doubt
38. Silently - That Dog

I am absolutely advocating forced population control.

@RedSky

I look forward to sharing my nothing with everyone else's nothing according to the infallible dictates of the market. Your scenario is one in which an ever increasing number of people compete for ever-dwindling resources. Wouldn't it be better to just leave one another a little space?

There's only so much energy, only so much land, only so much fresh water, only so much food (the very least of our concerns), only so much supply of rare minerals, only so much capacity for the environment to absorb pollutants. There are other problems. We may be happy to share what we have with others, how nice, but where do we acquire the right to impoverish everyone else with the burden of our excess offspring? Our share is shrinking all the time due to the actions of criminals who can't keep their legs crossed.

I don't recognise the mild and temporary problem of an aged population as being within two orders of magnitude of all the multifarious harms caused by overpopulation.

@Sniper007

It is my job, it is everyone's job, to police the world. If you're attending a party and you see another guest setting fire to the curtains you do not say,
"Well, it's not my job to stop them. I'll just stand here controlling my own activities, teaching the virtues of not setting fire to the curtains while the house incidentally burns down around me."

Agree completely. A child should be in no position or circumstance to 'talk to strangers' unsupervised until well after the age of reason or even until he or she can protect themselves through interaction with a trusted adult or group of others trusted. I mean c'mon, the worlds' always been dangerous for kids, right? Adults can be some twisted fuckers and so can the offspring of twisted adults. Know your environment.

Oh and mums' and dads', teach yer kids to speak Mandarin(preferably by age five). They'll be that much ahead of the game when they are older.

How about a combined fronts approach: Air-drops of cross-dressers and male dancers with Amazon drones delivering micro-stills and kobe beef to every family with enlisted offspring?? Include pamphlets laced with LSD with over-sized head caricatures of Putin-on-Obama porn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26118748

"Joerg Jebram, who oversees the European endangered species programme for giraffes, told the AP news agency: "Zoos could design new giraffe facilities, but many don't have that option.

"A young bull could theoretically be sent to an all-female group as stud, but experts prefer a larger, more mature male for that, and Marius didn't fit that bill.

"A final option is sending the giraffe to a zoo that doesn't participate in the EAZA-led breeding programme, but that could leave the giraffe or its offspring being sold into worse circumstances, such as those of a circus or private collection."

Copenhagen Zoo had turned down offers from at least two other zoos to take Marius and an offer from a private individual who wanted to buy the giraffe for 500,000 euros ($680,000).

Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director, said it had turned down an offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK, which is a member of EAZA, because Marius' older brother lives there and the park's space could be better used by a "genetically more valuable giraffe"."

So yah. Who knew that the guys who made caring for animals their like, profession and stuff might actually have some like, reasons. and stuff. I know, I know, it doesn't make as great a headline as "Zoo murders and mutilates innocent giraffe in front of children. also aidsrape."

'plays' not played, but yeah, there's probably a butt-load of female grannies who play the drums in the U.S., -There were a handful of all-female Jazz Band in the 30s-40s but their drummers were to young to have been grannies...OR perhaps too gay to want any offspring-Here's one of the hippest on film, Viola Smith....Maybe this was Vega's Granny??


MY GAWD, Frances Carroll (bandleader)....what a LOOKER!

*nibbles on brim of felt coxwain's...

Those are some weird results that shouldn’t really be possible, since the female is born with the eggs and thus the genetic material for the future offspring is already set when the mother is born. But nature is full of surprises.

But the other thing that separates Darwin from Lamarck, and even Wallace, was how much he really got completely right about evolution. Common decent, gradualism and the fact that evolution happens as a change in populations are all , in addition to natural selection, things that Darwin got spot on , and this was before we had even discovered genes. These insights is why we call it Darwinism, and not Wallaceism

Naive? How so? You apparently know so much more about the world than the rest of us, so please enlighten us.

Protecting your offspring (at least until they sexually mature) is a biological imperative for nearly all mammals including humans. It's how we ensure we pass on our genes. Humans, of course, can overcome that imperative if they choose to but as I was pointing out, the only ones who would choose to are shitty, self-absorbed people to begin with. Any well adjusted parent is not going to sit by and let their child get killed if they can help it.

Seems a logical next-step to fastidiously render the 'really tiny minority in our society' into dog food. The 'elite' are a cancer: Irradiate them, excise them, and place their offspring in the prisons they've built for us.

To these unseen perpetrators of the destruction of the planet and the souls and spirits of us regular folks should be delivered a message for future generations in the form of say, a monument. Yes, a monument similar to the wall of names of the fallen in wars (lest we forget)-

Here includes the names of all the wealthiest families the fascist human refuse that they are, their offspring, their legacy of anti-creation, anti-humanity, anti-life-

These people need to be annihilated, and the memory of their existence forever burned into the collective unconscious.

Destroy the fruits of their crimes and most importantly, end their bloodlines. Bury them, burn them, kill them all.

Otherwise, the planets' fucked.

"Chris" looks like the offspring of Bill Hader.

... And that's about the only thing of value that I could find in this.

Oops! I posted to the wrong profile. Sorry about that! Glad we were able to continue our dialogue.

My comments/responses interspersed:

> "economics has never been my strong suit."

I know, my friend, I know. As soon as I hear some defense of "socialism," I know.

> "but i AM quite literate in history and government and of
> course politics."

Yes, my dear friend, but history is tied to economics, and these days, unfortunately, politics too.

> "while you are correct that a socialist state can become a
> fascist one,so too can a democracy."

Again, we agree! Yes, in fact, fascism is the offspring of democracy. And while not strictly a fascist, was not Hitler elected?
Is there here some assumption that I regard "Democracy" as some sort of "holy cow?" On the contrary, "democracy" is a type of "soft" socialism.
At least as practiced and typically defined.
Not market democracy, however, which is the same as the free market, and not problematic. But pandering political democracy is something else.

> "it is really the forces of ideology"

Yes, in fact the book I am now reading makes this point throughout. So did Mises. But I will say that Mises was not altogether correct in dismissing Marx' assertion that systems and structures influence ideology and not the other way around. Mises was mostly correct, ideology creates systems and structures and institutions, but Marx was a little bit correct, there is also some influence in the other direction.

> "i do apologize for my oftentimes rambling.maybe because i
> am a little out of my comfort zone when it comes to
> economics"

Do not worry my friend, this is the case with most people who have strong political/economic opinions. It has been called afterall the "dismal science." If people knew about economics, we'd have a totally different system of government or no government at all.

> "your last post really cleared so many misconceptions i was
> having during this conversation."

Glad to hear. Some of my other "debaters" get very little out of our debate so it is a refreshing situation.

> "i knew we were more in agreement than disagreement.
> and we are."

I think most people are actually in agreement about goals, they just disagree about means, mostly because of lack of economic education. But once that is cleared, the agreements become more evident.

> "the banks need to held accountable."

1. yes banks need to be held accountable for fraud, like any other business or person.

> "which by inference means the governments role should be
> as fraud detector and protector of the consumer."

2. if you still want a government, meaning you still want a monopolist to do this. But a monopoly is inefficient (this is one of those "economics" laws, but one I think is almost self-evident). So asking a monopoly run by kleptocrats to do this is like asking the wolves to look over the sheep.

> "you didnt mention it but i hope you agree the corporate
> charter needs to be rewritten in a way where they are NOT a
> person and therefore shall be removed from the political
> landscape."

3. Since I don't think government (monopolist) are necessary, I don't think it should be inventing legal entities and forcing those on everyone else. Corporations are the creation of the state. Without a state monopoly, they would look much different than they do at present. In actuality, regardless of legal definitions, a corporation is a group of persons, like a union or social club or a partnership.

> "this will (or should) re-balance our political system (which is
> diseased at the moment)."

4. Corporations are a symptom, not the cause of all our social ills. Lack of economic calculation is much more problematic on all levels. In short, government is not a solution, but the major contributor to the problem. And we still have not gone into the whole issue of how the government is not "we" or "the people" in any meaningful way and how having coercive rulers is a problem.

> "which will return this country to a more level playing field and
> equate to=more liberty."

5. I don't know that we agree here. Corporations are not the cause of lack of liberties. Government is. Corporations won't throw you in jail for not obeying the rulers; government will. Corporations will not garnish your wages. Government will.

> "this will open innovation,progress and advancements in ALL
> fields AND due to competitive forces ,will lower prices."

6. Things like getting rid of IP laws will do so. So will getting rid of most/all taxation and arbitrary regulation.

> "how am i doing so far?"

Doing great!

> "what is governments role"?

I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
I don't want government to do anything for me, and I don't want it to force me at gunpoint to do anything at all.
A monopoly cannot do anything good that a free competitive market cannot do better.

> "the anarchist finds it perfectly acceptable to tear down that
> government to build a new one."

If you want someone to rule over you by force, you are not an anarchist. What kind of government would you consider "anarchy?"

> "if something aint working the way it was meant to,get rid of
> it and try another."

What if I don't want you or anyone else imposing rulers on me? What if I believe I have a right to self-ownership and voluntary interactions and property?
What if I don't want your form of "government?' Then what? You still want to impose it on me?
I thought you were my friend.

> "well in an unrestricted market and pesky government out of
> the way what do YOU think is going to happen to a system
> driven by self interest and profit?"

Everything will improve. But government had to be totally out of the way. btw, where do you get that government is not driven itself by self-interest and profit?

> "and i am ok with that."

Well, the difference between what you want and what I want is that what I want is not to be imposed on you but what you want is to be forcefully imposed on me, violently too, if I don't comply.

> "illegal to have an employee owned business."

Like I said, government is a problem.

> "i dont know why it was illegal in this area and i dont see how
> employee owned companies would threaten a free market."

In a free market anyone can own any business they want or else it is not a free market.

> "but as you figured out.
> economics is not my strong suit."

Just because there is a law prohibiting co-op ownership of a bar, it does not mean that it is there for some reason that makes economic sense. It actually makes no economic sense so it must be there for some political reason or because someone somewhere profits from this restriction, as is always the case with regulations.

> "and my man,cant tell ya how grateful i am to have had this
> conversation with you.i learned tons,about you and your
> views and even some about free markets."

Remember, a free market means free, not "semi" free. Not privilege for some, like regulations tend to do.
Always a pleasure.