Attempted Socialism wrote:OOC: Not a biologist, so I can be (And likely am) wrong, but it is my understanding that regular genome editing will only be for that generation; each new planting season you would have to get new GMO seeds. I was lead to believe that one of the controversies around this technology was the potential use of reproductive GMO crops.
OOC: In the Real Life world the "having to buy new GMO seeds each planting season" is usually because the plants have been engineered to not produce viable seeds. Or because
Monsanto the producer of the GMO variant will only sell you the seeds if you sign a contract promising to not to keep any for the next planting season. That is fucking messed up and should never be encouraged.
However, unless the genetic modification (note that this "modification" may be as simple as cross-breeding between related species) is such that the plant simply
cannot produce viable seeds (usually due to some mismatch in its
polyploidism), once you edit the originating plant so that it will express the edits in its seeds, you've got a self-propagating GMO plant. Such edits are usually done by using a harmless virus that, instead of its own viral DNA code, carries the wanted edit into the cell.
A gene drive in RL has a slightly less strict definition than what I'm using in the proposal, but it's like the evil twin of a gene, "killing" the competing gene in another chromosome, forcing the cell to repair it by using the only existing copy - the evil twin - as a blueprint. That makes it more likely for the "evil twin" to end up carried into the offspring, if the process happens in the inherited line of cells (in humans, sperm and egg cells). I don't know if there's a word for them in English that isn't "sex cells", so I kind of made one up for the proposal.
There are some natural genome expression-regulating ways (at least in diploid RL mammals) with which the choice is made by the cells on
which copy of a chromosome they'll read when making molecules based on the code. Some are more likely to be read when they come from the mother, others when they come from the father. The sex chromosomes, X and Y, are an extreme case of this, but it happens in the other chromosomes as well. Thus, an "evil twin" gene will also make sure that it's the one that's getting expressed.
Of course, the "evil twin" isn't necessarily better for the organism that has it in its genome, than the other one that gets eliminated. It really is a
selfish gene that way, as it doesn't care about the survivability of its carrier, it only cares about itself. And that's also why I use the words "selfish gene" in the proposal.
if I'm right then please tell me if and how this resolution would change the use of GMO crops.
Unless gene drives are used, it doesn't change anything. If gene drives are used, the restrictions in clauses 3 and 5 apply, and nations can choose to not allow their use, but other than that, it changes nothing.
If it's a bad idea that ought to require a lot of annoying bureaucracy and diplomacy, why not make it a bad idea that is banned?
Because while it may be a bad idea to drive faster than the speed limit, and you can get in serious trouble for doing that, if you were the patient aboard an ambulance and needed to get to the hospital ASAP, you'd want the driver to ignore speed limits where it was safe to do so, right? That's why I'm leaving it in as a possibility, but one that you really shouldn't get to do easily just because it was an idea you thought up at 2 am after the seventh beer and it felt like the Best Idea Ever at the time.
If these ideas are so bad that an entire planet worth of nations need to accept the use of them, they are bad enough to ban ... at least, that's my logic.
Nuclear weapons are a Really Bad Idea and should be banned, and in Real Life currently only
North Korea Russia USA an insane tinpot dictatorship would even consider actually using one. That's
my logic for wanting to ban them. But try and repeal NAPA and see what happens.
I guess my question would be "under what circumstances would an entire planet worth of nations give the green light for the release of dominant, species-jumping modified genes into the wild?"
Under circumstances where it was that or the end of the world. Or, at least, the end of the world for that sapient species. Or even directly their own extinction. You don't need to be much of a Mad Scientist
TM to be able to think up such scenarios.
If there are no scenarios where that would happen, then it's functionally a ban with an intermediary step.
If it's functionally a ban and you want it to be banned, then goal achieved?
Last, I know I likely edited in my question after you clicked quote, but I'd like a respond to this bit as well:
Well, it's banning the use of them as weapons, so that's GD, but it's allowing them to be used, with restrictions, in non-offensive ways. That's what the chemical weapons ban resolution does, too (
allows their use defensively). And very close to what the bioweapons ban (
you can't use them but you can own them for scientific study purposes) does, as well.
It's not about scientific study (
the few mentions don't actually require educational boost), nor is it bioethics (
at least not the way the AoE is introduced - healthcare and research standards - in the Categories list). It's not about healthcare or international aid, so Health category is out. It's not about environmental protection
at the cost of industry (
unless you RP as one specializing on gene drives, but that's going to be a very small number of nations, I'd say), so that's not right either. It's not about banning individuals, specifically, from doing stuff, so it's not moral decency. It doesn't cause funding demands on police or military (
labs might want to hire some goons to keep nosy people out, but that's not police/military), so it's not IS. It's definitely not human rights or social justice. It certainly doesn't reduce barriers to free trade and commerce. Has nothing to do with democracy or politics in general. Nor gun/drugs control or gambling. Advancement of Industry doesn't have a suitable category, plus this allows nations to ban their use if they want.
International Security and Global Disarmament are polar opposites to one another, their combined definition says "these categories can cover any kind of weaponry used by a nation's police or military", and while of my two model resolutions Chemical Weapons Accord is in IS, the other, Biological Warfare Convention is in GD. I could
make this IS, and that would likely be easier to "sell" to voters, but it's really about banning their use as weapons while allowing their sensible peaceful use, so GD it is. (
The "sensible" part is why there are so many clauses in addition to clause 2. )