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[–]Farseli 13 insightful - 4 fun13 insightful - 3 fun14 insightful - 4 fun -  (6 children)

I had a lot of fun in the FPH days. Sure, I had a few uses call me a shill for being pro-gmo, but it's not like I got downvoted into oblivion.

"Have your say" until you say something that doesn't fit the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist narrative they have going on there. Then the users take away your say.

I think that's one of the ways saidit might be better off. No downvotes means you can't be sent into negative karma and have your posting rights restricted beyond new user rates. And your posts won't be auto hidden.

Another is that this site isn't as afraid of demanding a certain level of etiquette from the users. Even Reddit doesn't care as much about poor behavior by users.

I commented on a refutation of the myth that Monsanto was suing farmers that accidentally planted patented seed and the reply I got was

I think you, and anyone defending Monsanto is a corporate bitch. I think that they either pay you. They employ you. They own you or they have something on you. I’m not a tin foil hat sorta guy. But tell me one logical normal reason you or anyone are in here defending them so thoroughly.

What exactly is your modulation? You’re just out there to defend the defenseless trillion dollar corporation? Poor poor suckers.

By holding our user base to the pyramid of debate model this kind of comment wouldn't be allowed. Nor would the comments I get on Voat.

I think the most interesting thing is the people I see posting in subs I want nothing to do with I also see posting things I do like in other subs and I can even talk with them in the chat.

At least for now, it isn't toxic to disagree and that's a huge difference.

[–]ikidd 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (5 children)

+1 on that. I've seen the anti-GMO crowd settling in here though with subs like /s/bayer-monsanto. Yet another extreme.

[–]Farseli 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

Exactly. It doesn't seem to matter what the accepted science says. Is it a case of feels before reals? I don't know.

I'd have to ignore all of the reputable evidence (peer-reviewed papers and the like) to think that glyphosate is toxic (at least more so than table salt) and if I do that I might as well just throw away my degree.

So I'm just waiting. I'll make a s/progmo at some point and probably a s/provax

Edit: Also glad that calling someone a shill goes against the content policy. Sorry that someone doesn't want to join in on the circlejerk, doesn't mean you get to dismiss their evidence by calling them a shill.

[–]magnora7 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Please take 45 seconds and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM

Please consider that much of Monsanto's science isn't actually peer-reviewed in any thorough way, it only has the appearance of such. Monsanto has teams of scientists that work to make monsanto look good, and the ones that produce papers that don't make monsanto look good are let go. Then the positive articles are published journals that monsanto has connections to. Papers by independent teams with contradictory results are kept from being published and so must publish to lesser-known journals.

Unfortunately it is relatively easy for a company the size of monsato to create the false appearance of consensus in the scientific community about glyphosate, especially when billions of dollars of profit depends on it, so they will literally spend billions to keep that false consensus going because it is profitable to do so.

"It's hard to get a man to see the truth when his income depends on him not seeing it." - Upton Sinclair

And I say this as someone who worked doing medical research at a big institution for 7 years, and I have a paper that might be getting published soon. I have seen how things work from the inside, how the sausage is made, and it is not always pretty. And sometimes people don't really care about real science anymore, and it becomes a grind to them. A way to be employed and make money, that's all.

I love the scientific method, it is one of the pinnacles of human wisdom. However the published journals and proclamations don't always match up to this, and will sometimes box out opposing opinions, especially if their careers depend on it.

This is the difference between actual science using the scientific method, and what I call "scientism" which is just believing whatever gets published by the biggest journals, by the academic establishment.

Ideally, there'd be no discrepancy between the two. But in reality, because humans are faulty beings full of biases (especially when a money incentive is involved) there ends up being a lot of bias that creeps in to the process of deciding what gets published and what doesn't.

When you create an experiment that gives a repeatable result that goes against mainstream published scientific dogma, and everyone tells you you're wrong because they believe what is published over what is actually reproducible, there is a problem with the establishment.

And this is the situation we find ourselves in with many corporate-published studies that we took to be true.

Remember when scientists and doctors thought cigarettes were healthy in the 1940s-50s? That's because of corporate "science" published by cigarette companies. A few decades later, the real science eventually broke through and things turned against the tobacco companies. But it took literally decades to undo the damage they had done with their fake profit-driven science.

This type of infection in to the world of published scientific literature is a staggering problem that is woefully under-addressed in academia and the scientific community at large. But I think people are starting to wake up about it, because it's become so shockingly common.

And remember even without the profit incentives, established science can be very wrong about things. Luminous Aether used to be the prevailing description about how the vacuum of space transmitted light, but it's very easily provable to be incorrect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

The guy who realized washing hands before surgery was committed to a nuthouse because no one believed him. Decades later everyone knows he was unquestionably correct.

[–]Chop_Chop 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Great post- that video is classic and should be seen by everyone on the planet. There are lots of great books too - here's one

ALTERED GENES, TWISTED TRUTH: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public by Steven Druker, an attorney who initiated a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that forced it to divulge its files on GM foods.

Not too long ago, it was "conventional wisdom" that margarine with trans-fats was better than butter. "Conventional wisdom" is usually wrong.

[–]wizzwizz4 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

The guy who realized washing hands before surgery was committed to a nuthouse because no one believed him. Decades later everyone knows he was unquestionably correct.

Yeah, but that can't happen _now_… (/me ignores)

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What? Neh... Scientists don't need money, right? They buy houses and food and cars with... You know, SCIENCE. Right?