@feld @kravietz you have set up a binary distinction "happy about 100% of big ag behavior pro GMO" vs "complete moron who doesn't understand basic science anti GMO"
there is a lot of nuance and challenging trade-offs, also big players, subsidies, and potential regulatory capture. TO an extent, technology has unquestionably improved agriculture, and arguably, beyond a point, technology is being used for profits at the expense of ecological and dietary health. the calculus has been based on minimizing human labor and maximizing profits via useage of subsidized fossil fuel. One specific vision of the economy.
Yes, there is the farming 1e9 acres with mostly automated mega-machines and a few decorative human operators. There is also Curtis Stone and JM Fortier making 6 figures on less than an acre. If you decide one thing is the answer and subsidize it, you've made your own conclusion instead of letting the market decide.
there is a lot of nuance and challenging trade-offs, also big players, subsidies, and potential regulatory capture. TO an extent, technology has unquestionably improved agriculture, and arguably, beyond a point, technology is being used for profits at the expense of ecological and dietary health. the calculus has been based on minimizing human labor and maximizing profits via useage of subsidized fossil fuel. One specific vision of the economy.
Yes, there is the farming 1e9 acres with mostly automated mega-machines and a few decorative human operators. There is also Curtis Stone and JM Fortier making 6 figures on less than an acre. If you decide one thing is the answer and subsidize it, you've made your own conclusion instead of letting the market decide.
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So you're absolutely right that we should be talking in terms of cost-benefit with all the parameters you mentioned (biodiversity, human welfare, economy) but you know what will be the first to protest against that? Greenpeace.
Because this means we would need to bring back to the table the topics they barely managed to remove from the public discussion as "filthy" - GMO and nuclear power. Which they don't like because they started believing their own propaganda.
While they are irrational, I also question how much Greenpeace actually impedes anything. Yes, protestors in cities get media coverage. I do not see farmers unable to plant their fields because of protestors. And on the flipside, the agtech industry is huge, almost monopoly, and surely has some PR capabilities of their own. But I don't really see a point to go tit-for-tat, if I say some of the industrial agriculture "success stories" have been putting out fires caused by themselves in the first place, some of their claims are overagerrated, some comparison studies are done against carefully chosen inefficient examples of "organic" or "natural" vs exceptional instances of "gmo".
But it sounds like you won't entertain those notions, you'll just write off these ideas as Greenpeace propaganda.