Long Now Media Update

Having listened to Stewart’s presentation, I am very concerned at the lack of questioning either by himself or any of the audience members on the role that corporations (will) play on mini-nukes and GMO.
With particular reference to genetically modified crops, Stuart really lambasted the opposition to GMO, effectively blaming ‘no-to-GMO’ for starvation and suffering.
Listening to his speech, one would assume he sees the opposition to GMO as simply opposition to the technology. Whilst I believe that the impact of anything GMO goes far, far beyond what we have measured, I would also say the ‘corporate ownership’ of food production is as potentially destructive as poorly-understood biota being released into the Earth’s massively-interconected eco-systems.

There are already many, many cases of local food producers, all over the world, being muzzled by the strong-arms of large corporations involved in GMO seed production.

Stuart – why did you not voice the concern that alongside the obvious benefits of GMO comes with it the price of powerful corporations pushing the technology over the heads of government and people? Surely you don’t think that just because a technology would be an effective ‘quick-fix’ in the urgent arena of climate change, that more long-term problems such as the ownership by any one corporation of corn, maize, etc wouldn’t concern us today?

If, in the future, we are even more tied, via local power and local food production, to the distant might of corporations, is there not be at least questions about this model?

I felt that in your speech, you seemed to promote the notion of increasingly power to corporations by simply not questioning this aspect of future food/power generating technologies.