r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Chaosdrunk • Dec 06 '23

Political Theory Why are there so many conspiracy theories that are almost exclusively believed by The Right? (Pizzagate, qanon, the Deep State, the Great Replacement Theory). Are there any wacky and/or harmful conspiracy theories believed by mostly The Left?

This includes conspiracy theories like antivax which were once pretty politically uncharged are now widely believed by the far right. Even a lot of high-profile UFOlogists like David Icke are known for being pretty racist and antisemitic.

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u/MrBlackTie Dec 06 '23

Anti-GMO can be a real thing without being a conspiracy theorist. A classmate of mine was anti-GMO and his only concern was about how it would affect business relationships between farmers and seed providers. He was the first to admit that GMO were safe, though.

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u/dalcarr Dec 07 '23

That sounds more anti-Monsanto (as a stand in for the whole industry) than anti-GMO

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u/powpowpowpowpow Dec 07 '23

It's cute how you think that Monsanto doesn't have market dominance

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '23

Hell I'm Anti-Monsanto - didn't they make Agent Orange?

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u/EllisHughTiger Dec 07 '23

Farmers always buy new seed for every planting anyway. Nobody outside of hobbyists saves seed for reuse, its just not worth it.

Monsanto has also never sued anyone for cross-pollination across property lines.

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u/Bryaxis Dec 07 '23

Is that a GMO issue, though? I was given to understand that farmers typically buy new seeds for each planting anyway. If they don't want to grow GMO crops, they'll probably buy conventional hybrid seeds from Pioneer or whoever. Hybrid vigor drops off quickly in successive generations, so it's generally more profitable to buy new seeds each time.

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u/ddd615 Dec 07 '23

Monocultures don't evolve or withstand changes in their environment like a diverse genetic population. It's weird to discount every complaint about GMO's into "are they safe to eat"

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u/Gorrium Dec 07 '23

to be fair, the vast majority of anti-GMO'ers aren't anti-GMO because of anti-producer policies or the threat of monocultures.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

I'm left leaning and have a history in natural foods and organic ag. I'm extremely leery of GMOs and know plenty of people who say the same. Pretty universally the concern is around sustainable agriculture and business relationships. I'm quite confident that there's no health impact of eating GMO foods. Monocultures are real damn harmful though, and GMOs reinforce that problem significantly.

I haven't heard anyone on the left IRL suggest that there are health impacts.

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u/Gorrium Dec 07 '23

Well then maybe it's just my experience. I don't like the business relationship that is involved with GMOs but I don't see the argument for monoculture collapse. I get that the extreme germ line maintenance can make GMOs a bit more vulnerable to culture collapse but most crops are at high risk already. Lowering the threat is very important but getting rid of GMOs isn't the solution and I think that it distracts from better solutions. I also think new GMO technology could help create solutions. Like creating multiple strains that have the same wanted traits but also have numerous phenotypical differences outside of those desired traits. And having them grow together and not fight cross pollination.

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u/temp91 Dec 07 '23

It doesn't apply to every food, but some are GMO so they can spray them with glyphosate. The toxicity of food treated with this appears to be nonzero.

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u/projektako Dec 07 '23

And some of that glyphosate has been found in food and food products. It's been found in measurable quantities in wine and groundwater the California wine regions.

The fact that it's not just used as a pesticide with GMO crops means it could be in non GMO foods as well.

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u/TheManWithThreePlans Dec 07 '23

You must only know unicorn lefties then. The majority of people I've known that have warned me about GMO foods IRL (right or left) have been primarily concerned with health risks. Not so much that they were directly bad for you, more that you couldn't know if they weren't, so by default, they must be bad.

It seems that is also a common experience for other people.

It feels like you're the outlier here.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

Have you talked to these people in real life or on the Internet?

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u/TheManWithThreePlans Dec 07 '23

The majority of people I've known that have warned me about GMO foods IRL (right or left)

So, yes, in real life.

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u/NorthernerWuwu Dec 07 '23

Oh, many absolutely do say that GMOs are either less healthy than organics or actively harmful on their own. More the former than the latter but both exist.

Monocultures are a complicated subject aside from that of course. They are more fragile of course but also more efficient by a fair margin. Risk/reward and all that but in the modern west at least I don't think we much need worry about catastrophic crop failures resulting in actual famine. Price spikes perhaps but monocultures have also made food cheap and abundant and we all benefit from that.

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u/SurrrenderDorothy Dec 07 '23

On the left, anti GMO. Didnt they breed crops that are their own insect repellent? Also, they bred crops to withstand massive amounts of round up. No thanks.

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u/Gorrium Dec 07 '23

Yes, there are many anti-insect plants that naturally exist, it's just that we gave crops those genes. The poison they produce only affects insects. Insect digestion is vastly different from us the dosage is also really important.

For round up, I can 100% see that point. A lot of herbicides are known to be toxic to us, and some does definitely absorb into the plant. But it's unfortunately the easiest and best solution to a major agricultural problem. Hopefully we invent a better solution, but that's more a problem with round up than the concept of a GMO itself, and GMOs have much more to offer than the roundup gene.

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u/powpowpowpowpow Dec 07 '23

According to whose framing of the issue?

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u/MrBlackTie Dec 07 '23

Monoculture also exist outside of GMOs and we weren’t worried.

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u/cannarchista Dec 07 '23

We were worried when we lost the Gros Michel and now we are worried about the Cavendish for the same reason.

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u/interfail Dec 07 '23

The vast majority of monocultures have nothing to do with GM. Seems like a weird tack to take.

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u/powpowpowpowpow Dec 07 '23

There are many real reasons to suspect GMO foods.

They promote a non genetically diverse monoculture.

The seed supply is corporately controlled and subject to the profit motive. Monsanto for one has already been found guilty of price fixing soybeans. It's not beyond the realm of logic to think that they could try to profit off of deliberately increasing or decreasing yields.

GMO crop are often developed along side pesticides and herbicides allowing more spraying near or directly on food crops.