Listen now (52 mins) | Yascha Mounk and Charles Kenny discuss the progress we’ve made in improving the lives of the global poor (and the work that remains to be done).
Just a couple of thoughts about your discussion of GM food: sure humans have been modifying genes of the things they've domesticated, crops and livestock, since the beginning, but they haven't been inserting the genes of other species, which it seems we'd want to know the impact of over multiple generations of offspring before we get too involved in it. And for sure they weren't modifying crop genes so that they could more effectively apply Round-up on those crops. Help yourself to all the Round-up you can get, if that's your desire -- but don't inflict it on the unsuspecting and on the children, and don't pretend that the issue is just about genetic improvement as if GM were just a better form of cross-breeding.
Charles Kenny on the Material Progress of the Developing World
Just a couple of thoughts about your discussion of GM food: sure humans have been modifying genes of the things they've domesticated, crops and livestock, since the beginning, but they haven't been inserting the genes of other species, which it seems we'd want to know the impact of over multiple generations of offspring before we get too involved in it. And for sure they weren't modifying crop genes so that they could more effectively apply Round-up on those crops. Help yourself to all the Round-up you can get, if that's your desire -- but don't inflict it on the unsuspecting and on the children, and don't pretend that the issue is just about genetic improvement as if GM were just a better form of cross-breeding.
Why can't humanity take a win?