This is a good point. But it still stands in contrast to non-disclosure of everything that’s not an ingridient: processes, pesticides, etc. Produce like fruit or raw meat doesn’t have any “ingridiends”.
GMO’s are ingridients.
Golden Rice looks different than normal rice, so people who want to buy it can see the difference and make informed decisions about what they want to buy. With a lot of other GMO products that isn’t the case.
Suppose I buy some bread. The label will list “wheat” as an ingredient. There are many varieties of wheat with various genetic differences between them, produced in part by directed breeding. The label won’t say which variety was used, unless the genetic engineering was done by a particular set of modern technologies, in which case it must say it’s GMO.
Clearly, to benefit the customer, the label should list (classes of) genotypical and phenotypical variations, perhaps only those that have been deemed legal-but-potentially-dangerous. Listing the technology used to originally breed that variety is irrelevant, and feeds on a naturalistic fallacy (just like the term “organic food”).
Golden Rice looks different than normal rice, so people who want to buy it can see the difference and make informed decisions about what they want to buy.
As an aside, all varieties of rice look different. My store stocks long, short, round, brown, red, etc. rice. I have no idea what, if any, the difference is. I wouldn’t pay special attention to a new golden variety if it wasn’t specially labelled.
It’s true that if people want to know something—for whatever reason—then it’s plausible for the government to mandate providing that information. This allows people to buy or boycott food to support various non-health/nutrition-related, but still important, causes.
On the other hand, I’d like government to support many endeavors that are beneficial for everyone as long as they remain secret, but would make people angry if they were widely known. For example, I might support nuclear power, which public opinion is generally against; so I don’t want products to be labelled as ‘made using electricity from nuclear power’.
I feel that in these subjects, like nuclear power, GMOs and organic food, the mainstream public opinion is for or against them not just because it’s misinformed on a factual level, but because people have real preferences for e.g. ‘not eating unnatural food’ even if they believe it’s good for your health.
Suppose I buy some bread. The label will list “wheat” as an ingredient. There are many varieties of wheat with various genetic differences between them, produced in part by directed breeding. The label won’t say which variety was used, unless the genetic engineering was done by a particular set of modern technologies, in which case it must say it’s GMO.
As we go on in this century the amount of genes that will be different with GMO’s is likely to increase. What kind of shelling point would you propose to decide when people should have to add a label?
but because people have real preferences for e.g. ‘not eating unnatural food’ even if they believe it’s good for your health.
In the spirit of informed consent I don’t think that’s reason to withold information from them.
On the other hand, I’d like government to support many endeavors that are beneficial for everyone as long as they remain secret
I think that transparancy and free flow of information is vital to dealing with risks arising from new technology. I don’t want government burocrats who think it’s best to keep new technology that has an effect on people secret because the people might not like it.
What kind of shelling point would you propose to decide when people should have to add a label?
When a new food hasn’t passed safety demonstrations comparing it to old varieties. Either by demonstrating that it’s chemically the same (i.e. I don’t care if it had an extra gene causing it to grow quicker); or by studies in people, just like for new medicines (the kind of studies that have to prove safety, not to prove efficacy).
Of course, lots of foods introduced throughout history and which keep being introduced today aren’t up to these standards; they just don’t happen to be genetically modified using modern technology, so no-one asks them to demonstrate their safety. I think the difference between what’s required of old and new tech should be smaller.
I think that transparancy and free flow of information is vital to dealing with risks arising from new technology. I don’t want government burocrats who think it’s best to keep new technology that has an effect on people secret because the people might not like it.
I shouldn’t have used the word “secret”; I don’t want things to be classified or lied about; I just wish, counterfactually, that such subjects wouldn’t gain widespread public interest. I don’t trust mass public opinion and lobbying over government bureaucrat decision making in technical matters and I’d like to have some combination of transparency with rational decision making.
For almost every product sold, food or otherwise, it’s probably possible to come up with a factually truthful label that would scare away customers. But even socially powerful causes, like that against cruelty to animals, rarely get what they dislike labelled (“this product made with factory farmed chicken”). Shoes aren’t labelled “made in child sweatshops”. Software isn’t labelled “written on the Shabbath”.
I’d like to keep it that way. The political-social game of putting shaming labels on things based on lobbying success can do a lot of harm to everyone if it goes far enough. Labeling requirements should be restricted to a very small set of very clear rules, e.g. those about potentially causing physical harm.
(Btw, I don’t know much about this, but one difference about rices is their starch structures. Different starches hydrolyze to various extents when you cook them, which seems to me to at least matter calorically (the amounts of washed out saccharides will not be the same). I mention this since it’s already a “continue this thread”, so less likely to distract people.)
GMO’s are ingridients.
Golden Rice looks different than normal rice, so people who want to buy it can see the difference and make informed decisions about what they want to buy. With a lot of other GMO products that isn’t the case.
That’s technically true, but it misses my point.
Suppose I buy some bread. The label will list “wheat” as an ingredient. There are many varieties of wheat with various genetic differences between them, produced in part by directed breeding. The label won’t say which variety was used, unless the genetic engineering was done by a particular set of modern technologies, in which case it must say it’s GMO.
Clearly, to benefit the customer, the label should list (classes of) genotypical and phenotypical variations, perhaps only those that have been deemed legal-but-potentially-dangerous. Listing the technology used to originally breed that variety is irrelevant, and feeds on a naturalistic fallacy (just like the term “organic food”).
As an aside, all varieties of rice look different. My store stocks long, short, round, brown, red, etc. rice. I have no idea what, if any, the difference is. I wouldn’t pay special attention to a new golden variety if it wasn’t specially labelled.
It’s true that if people want to know something—for whatever reason—then it’s plausible for the government to mandate providing that information. This allows people to buy or boycott food to support various non-health/nutrition-related, but still important, causes.
On the other hand, I’d like government to support many endeavors that are beneficial for everyone as long as they remain secret, but would make people angry if they were widely known. For example, I might support nuclear power, which public opinion is generally against; so I don’t want products to be labelled as ‘made using electricity from nuclear power’.
I feel that in these subjects, like nuclear power, GMOs and organic food, the mainstream public opinion is for or against them not just because it’s misinformed on a factual level, but because people have real preferences for e.g. ‘not eating unnatural food’ even if they believe it’s good for your health.
As we go on in this century the amount of genes that will be different with GMO’s is likely to increase. What kind of shelling point would you propose to decide when people should have to add a label?
In the spirit of informed consent I don’t think that’s reason to withold information from them.
I think that transparancy and free flow of information is vital to dealing with risks arising from new technology. I don’t want government burocrats who think it’s best to keep new technology that has an effect on people secret because the people might not like it.
When a new food hasn’t passed safety demonstrations comparing it to old varieties. Either by demonstrating that it’s chemically the same (i.e. I don’t care if it had an extra gene causing it to grow quicker); or by studies in people, just like for new medicines (the kind of studies that have to prove safety, not to prove efficacy).
Of course, lots of foods introduced throughout history and which keep being introduced today aren’t up to these standards; they just don’t happen to be genetically modified using modern technology, so no-one asks them to demonstrate their safety. I think the difference between what’s required of old and new tech should be smaller.
I shouldn’t have used the word “secret”; I don’t want things to be classified or lied about; I just wish, counterfactually, that such subjects wouldn’t gain widespread public interest. I don’t trust mass public opinion and lobbying over government bureaucrat decision making in technical matters and I’d like to have some combination of transparency with rational decision making.
For almost every product sold, food or otherwise, it’s probably possible to come up with a factually truthful label that would scare away customers. But even socially powerful causes, like that against cruelty to animals, rarely get what they dislike labelled (“this product made with factory farmed chicken”). Shoes aren’t labelled “made in child sweatshops”. Software isn’t labelled “written on the Shabbath”.
I’d like to keep it that way. The political-social game of putting shaming labels on things based on lobbying success can do a lot of harm to everyone if it goes far enough. Labeling requirements should be restricted to a very small set of very clear rules, e.g. those about potentially causing physical harm.
(Btw, I don’t know much about this, but one difference about rices is their starch structures. Different starches hydrolyze to various extents when you cook them, which seems to me to at least matter calorically (the amounts of washed out saccharides will not be the same). I mention this since it’s already a “continue this thread”, so less likely to distract people.)