>Misha wrote, in response to Dan Glickman:
>
>>... his comment about biotechnology
>>being the "twin" of information technology. ...
That is an illustrative statement that clearly demonstrates a clear confusion
between biological, evolutionary development (on the one hand) and manipulative,
electro-mechanical (and proprietary) development on the other. (Anyone having
trouble distinguishing the difference deserves my sympathy but not much of the time
it would take on my part to elucidate further - maybe later).
>Do I remember correctly that a Monsanto PR guy was quoted in the New York
>Times Magazine (in that excellent potato cover-story), stating that
>Monsanto's goal was to become the "Windows Operating System of Agriculture?"
That too is a good illustration of the same mentality - it's like thinking you own the air that you
breathe (but which if you try to "keep", gets old quite quickly). There's an important difference
between improving and sharing a little corner of the world through your own effort and
believing you HAVE a corner on it (and a lot more coming &/or going than anyone else)
- even though there are more than a few around these days that think that's all there
is that counts. As for Bill Gates, he simply ate the errand he'd been given by IBM - which
is a company that to this day makes more money on software alone than Microsoft -
even if Bill himself became the "richest" man in the world and OS2 just stayed warped
(without the necessary developer support and therefore, client base - 10,000,000 weren't
enough).
What's more disturbing is that someone with that mentality could get to be Secretary of
Agriculture (agricultural being a biological activity, at bottom), appointed by by someone
who should know better - which just goes to show that someone up there (and it ain't
the other Bill) has a well developed sense of humor and wants to keep us all on our toes.
Which is both why this list exists, and is a bit infiltrated.
DH
Douglas M. Hinds
Centro para el Desarrollo Comunitario y Rural, A.C. (CeDeCoR)
(Center for Community and Rural Development)
Petronilo Lopez No. 73
Cd. Guzman, Jalisco 49000 MEXICO
e-mail: dmhinds@acnet.net, cedecor@acnet.net, cedecor@ipnet.com.mx
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