Troubling things come in trivial packages I always say (that's a lie I've never said it till now). Disney now have Infinite copyright, the black hearted devils, which means that most of the large corps can just vacuum up almost all of human culture from the 20th Century.
Now it's banana's. Because banana's are all genetically the same (that's wot the article said, i'm not convinced) because they've all been taken from the same plant via cuttings. They are all equally susceptible to a particular fungus which could wipe banana's out in ten years unless we (here's the crunch) add genes from other banana varieties (non edible kinds) to created gentically modified banana's.
The upshot seems to me that (and it wouldn't surprise me if the bio-corps had anything to do with the spread of the fungus) in 50 years, all our food will be created and sold by companies that own the copyright of those foodstuffs.
Once they've managed to copyright you (this has been done to one man who has had a section of his DNA copyrighted by a corp because they discovered a faulty gene in it) then all you will have left is your souls, if you haven't sold it for a big mac.
All I wanted from the future was mutants and mega-cities, it's all very dissapointing.
I was hoping the future would mean an end to superfluous apostrophes, but - alas - I've been proved wrong. :-)
On an irrelevant note, I was at school with someone whose nickname was "bananas" because he wouldn't say the word "bastard" and instead substituted the name of that fine, threatened fruit.
He was a right twat.
- Trout
Does anyone know who won the first page of Billy Jones and page 2, episode 2 of The Oxygen Desert from Ian Gibson on eBay earlier this year? Ian has sent me the rest of these stories to sell on his behalf, though I haven't listed them on the art sale page yet. He also sent the complete first Luna 1 episode, when Dredd is called up.
Several of these pages will appear either on eBay or the art sale page in the near future.
Wake
Link: Original Art Sale
You can't actually copyright food or any other GM thing (animal, vegetable or mineral). These things are all protected by patents, which only last 20 years from the date of development before entering the public domain. So - not to worry!
Sorry, patents, thats what i meant, but how long will that last? Disney has constantly been at the front of pushing back such boudaries, so it's not unlikely some US company with similar clout could try it with patents. You never know...
Even if that wasn;t true, you can always produce a new crop and something that will make the old one uneconomic, so they'll get us one way or another.
Doomed!
I bet they make the GM ones' skins non-slippy...
Actually outside of a Laurel and Hardy film has anyone ever seen somebody slip on a banana.
apparently my mother has done, according to the anecdote of juve3.. "the halarious granny banana skin incident"
That man who's gene was copyrighted, was that the american who's gene was used in the cancer drug interferon for which he never received a penny?
So if all bananas (as we know them)are genetically the same cos they come from the same clone mother, then they've already been genetically engineered.
Surely we could just take cuttings from another non-identical plant of the same species or better still learn to appreciate a little variety in our food as I'm informed there are lots of different kinds of banana enjoyed throughout the world.
Certainly sounds like the bioengineereing corps trying to pull a fast one in order to promote their nefarious ends, but we the good consumers eventually decide...well no we don't we can only buy what's there.
Right I'm depressed now.
I know the argument that cross-breading is a primitive form of gentic engineering, but at the end of the day I don't think anyone can own the result.
Banana's disappear in 50 years? Only one thing to say to that!
Hands thread over to the Librarian....
OOK!
Let the mouse be free!
Link: On no Mickey!
Banana skins...orta be a law against them.
Ed
here is another true thought.
tried to order real chips. big thick ones english style outside of the UK?
you get mc donalds sized french fries.
i purchase from european suppliers for my use at the Brit club.as a majority of the other suppliers either dont bother to stock or charge higher prices for such limited demand.
Mc donalds have trained an entire generation to expect food in less then three minutes and it to be loot warm and standardized.
whilst the big companies may not be owning the copyrights or patents they are shaping the version they find most cost effective.
your post is not as far fetched as it may at first seem.
consider we only really know three types of bannana. delmonte.pisang mas and the brazilain one. there are many many differnt types.
same with potatoes.there are 137 varites. we only use 8.
it is possible to see an end in our life time of many food types.becasue big market call the shots.
Bananas?
Good riddence to 'em, can't stand the smelly nasty buggers.
Uch, I used to work in a McD's, you should smell the concentrated banana syrup they put in the milk-shakes, evil, evil stuff.
mat
Can't say i'll be sorry to see them go. Can't stand the things, even the smell of them makes me want to hurl.
In the future we will grow meat in huge factory vats.
Link: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999
Nature will find a way...
Link: PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED
Ooooo! I'd like to get my mouth around one of those. :)
Now that IS genetically modified surely?!
Ah well, I thought it was an interesting topic.
I think my 'puter is pre-set against rude piccies as all I get is a wee pic of alternating steak & cheese...
Funnily enough I heard "ordinary" people (as opposed to the sci-fi obsessed conspiracy theorists who inhabit this site :) ) discussing the 'nana issue down the pub yesterday. Erm, perhaps it's been in the papers or summat. Ah well.
If you right click on the steak & cheese logo then go to properties and copy the address URL into your address bar on your browser and click go, it should show you the picture.
This usually works for any improperly displayed picture. I'm posting the URL here to save you the trouble in this instance, so all you need to do is copy it into your browser address bar and click go.
http://pics2002.steakandcheese.com/phalic.jpg
I read the article in the New Scientist about the bananas. Basically the banana we eat now is a sterile fruit, the brown bit in the middle are the vestigal leftovers of the original bananas seeds. So all cultivation of bananas is done by cuttings and with this soil fungus going to wipe them out within x no of years and there are no real alternatives, the small other varieties out there cannot be grown in the same way and quantities. It's not just us that is affected, bananas are the mainstay of every supermarket (their best selling product) but for the majority of some countries such as Uganda the banana makes up most of their diet. Without that there are some serious problems coming up.
Aha! Zeep learns how to do another thing on his 'puter and is inordinately proud of himself!
Rude banana snigger chortle...thanks Karne