The crazy conspiracy theory believed by 190 million Chinese - Alliance for Science
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Numerous public opinion surveys have shown that Chinese people have a sharply negative attitude towards genetically modified foods, despite the worldwide scientific consensus that they are as safe as any other. But the latest piece of research, published in the Nature partner journal Science of Food by two scientists working at University of California-Davis, is […]

You can read about the reason I’m asking this in the spoiler. TLDR I’m just wondering if there’s some debunking I can do since western media is oh-so-not-trustworthy

spoiler

I’m in some IRL debate (Well, online but in a closed chat) with some libs. They are talking about the right-wingers saying Taylor swift is being paid off to spread democratic votes, whatever, hollyweird are all dems, no conspiracy needed.

I mentioned that we need to actually, you know, actively keep conspiracy theories from spreading, and my liberal friend is gishgaloping a bit, but I’ll bite since they are sincere, even if wrong.

They came back with “Well china has conspiracy theories”, which I didn’t mention china, I didn’t mention anything about censorship, it’s just gishgalloping like I said, but anyway…

Any truth to this one? I mean being anti-gmo is not rare, so I’m not surprised if it was true. I don’t have a good handle on high quality china news (And cannot read their sites myself, even with translators it’s a slow experience).

Edit: Oops, I had to go AFK after posting this and didn’t get to clarify as the comments were all being. I meant do Chinese people broadly believe in the conspiracy theories around GMOs such as causing cancer or making your DNA change or something like that. Of course GMOs are complicated science and are a tool used by capitalists to patentize (did I make up that word? Lol) the food industry, which is a natural science and typically difficult to patent.

  • ComradeSalad
    131·
    5 months ago

    Humans have been gene editing since the start of agriculture. That is literally what selective breeding and splicing is.

    The modern version is just accelerated, and it has saved the lives of billions of people.

    Crops have been modified to require less water. Most grain is modified to be reinforced with iron and other nutrients. Cotton can have double the yield with little resources. etc.

    • knfrmity
      5·
      5 months ago

      That’s the bit I don’t get about the whole fuss around genetic modification. It’s not new! But people are easily scared about (purposefully mysterious) things that happen in labs, whereas it’s much more “natural” or whatever for the farmer to be doing it in the field.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
        4·
        5 months ago

        I am cautious about GMO. While there are obvious benefits to the specific improvements we can rapidly introduce, I think there are also reasons to be wary. Genetic diversity of staple crops is infinitely important, and should be protected. GMOs do not exist in a vacuum, and I am not at all confident that our current systems will exercise the caution and foresight to ensure we don’t end up with some catastrophic outcome due to worldwide monocropping.

    • QueerCommie
      2·
      5 months ago

      My understanding of the really existing downsides is that in the current form of genetic modification it can lead to lack of biodiversity and further control for agro corps through ip laws.