In a way, this is nothing new. When Norman Borlaug was working to save the couple of billion lives with his green revolution, also his plant breeding methods (which we now see as traditional, totally natural and acceptable) were often seen a unnatural and potentially dangerous:

"Throughout his years of research, Borlaug's programs often faced opposition by people who consider genetic crossbreeding to be unnatural or to have negative effects."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Criticisms_and_h...

"I also think the issue of patents and self-reproducing organisms is a legal hell-hole."

There actually exists plant breeder's rights for traditional (non-GMO) varieties, so the situation with patents may not be so much different:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_breeders%27_rights

At the same time, there are some long-term criticisms that are not mentioned here. Borlaug's methods are almost entirely reliant on fossil fuels for example, so there has long been a criticism that he simply delayed the inevitable. When the fossil fuels run out, modern agriculture will collapse.

Right now that is definitely true. It would be possible to evolve technologically to the point that it isn't, but so far that's been a slow slog.

There is a similar criticism to be made about present-day GMO tactics, and I allude to it in my OP: they buy temporary wins but are not sustainable due to selection effects and horizontal gene transfer diluting them over time. A lot of the ecological/sustainability crowd are basically arguing that we have to look for permanent solutions, not temporary gains, and that temporary gains have a way of degrading the environment in ways that make permanent solutions more difficult.

What it really boils down to is this:

http://citizenactionmonitor.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/worl...

If that graph doesn't scare the living shit out of you, you aren't thinking about it very deeply.

Is this a permanent shift, or is it a bubble? If it is a bubble, its collapse will result in suffering beyond our capacity to even imagine.

We fertilize crops, especially with nitrogen, because the triple bond in atmospheric N≡N is a tough nut to break. We use chemical engineering (in this case, high pressure and heat, google Haber-Bosch process) to fix the nitrogen from the air on behalf of the plants.

This requires energy, but any cheap energy would do, it doesn't need to be from fossil fuels.

Nature, animal and insect life, is far too chaotic a process involving too many interactions, for them to know what long term effects "weeds that glow in the dark" will have (Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide!). So they mostly experiment in real life, with government regulatory bodies that are easily bought or swayed.

(And no, the "overpopulation that needs to be fed" defense that's often used is mostly BS. For one, they could not care less: they patent their work to death and charge a premium for the seeds to poor third world farmers -- as drug companies do with AIDS drugs etc. Second, the main use of those techniques it to make food for the first world, sold to the same people that always had food, have higher profit margins).

As for the reason a lot of people in the tech etc community are pro-GMOs, I think it's two-fold:

For one, they react to some rather poor arguments from the anti-GMO crowd, that, as any large crowd, also contains ignorant people, neo-hippies, etc. So they throw the baby (caution and scepticism) with the bathwater (ignorant claims).

Second, they confuse engineering (including GMO engineering) with science, and think that by defending any random money-grabbing work of engineering they are defending "science" against the ignorant masses. They make an ego conpensating psychological mechanism out of science, like religious people do with religion.

That it a somewhat cheap shot. Yes, science makes mistakes. But I don't think switching over to the anti-vaccine, homeopathy-supporting type of crowd results in less mistakes.

What I don't like is hastily done applied technology that pretends to be science, but instead of knowledge it caters to money interests and the need for a quick buck. And the people that go "Oh, science was used in the process of creating this, we must defend it" (hint: science was also used in creating cigarettes and high fructose corn syrup).

Science is about learning. Those kind of endeavours, like Monstanto, is about locking-down and selling -- and let the future generations sort any bad outcomes out.

They can (and do) sidestep scientific rigor, objections, methodological issues, and the need for long term impact studies (and of course, all the ethical and societal issus arising from a company patending seeds themselves) to the maximum extend that regulatory bodies allow them.

This is IMHO a really major reason for opposition to GMOs: people do not trust the "establishment" in general anymore.

I actually hear someone say once: "if it comes from a big company, it's about fucking you over or taking your money." People have a sense that they are serfs and that overtop of them are a bunch of feudal lords rubbing their hands together and cackling about new ways to impoverish, poison, or otherwise stick a boot in their face.

This perception has many bases, but ultimately I think it's an emotional reaction to the contemptuous treatment that the public receives by way of the political class and the PR industry. When you talk "down" to people and treat them like idiots, it foments contempt. This contempt is expressed through distrust and suspicion.

And there are certainly people who fit the "cackling feudal monster" stereotype. I don't believe they are in the majority, but there are enough of them to create a bad impression. Keep in mind that human beings give excessive weight to negative examples. If you walk through a neighborhood and someone mugs you, you will forever consign it to a status as a "bad neighborhood" even though 99.99% of the neighborhood's residents would never do that. The same goes for elite deviance. A single Bernie Madoff creates the same perceptive effect as an entire ruling class made up of Bernie Madoffs.

Also e.g. social networks and cell phones come from big companies, but for some reason no one is suggesting to ban the technology that they are based on.