Bad Reasons to Oppose Something

You need to apply critical thinking to critical thinking if you want to end up believing true things.

I was recently reminded about the ongoing Golden Rice tragedy, and that I had an old draft article that I think was meant to be secretly about it. Golden Rice is rice that’s been genetically modified to be higher in beta-carotene. Our bodies can convert beta-carotene to Vitamin A as needed, and Vitamin A is a nutrient we all need, children in particular. Golden Rice was invented by philanthropist-funded projects in order to help places where it’s easy to grow rice but hard to grow things high in Vitamin A. It’s been extensively studied and found to be safe and effective, and patentholders like Monsanto have made versions of it free to farmers in developing countries. And yet, somehow, there’s been widespread and effective opposition. 22 years after the first field trials, farmers still aren’t allowed to sell it, and kids are still dying.

So, with that infuriating context, here are some Bad Reasons to Oppose Something, most of which I’ve seen deployed against Golden Rice.

• “This solution is a band-aid.” You know what else are band-aids? Band-aids. Should we oppose band-aids?

• “Someone will profit from it.” I sure hope so.

• “Look at this list of incidents where it caused harm!” You can make that kind of list about literally anything on Earth¹. The existence of a list is therefore only evidence that at least one person dislikes the thing.

• “It hasn’t been proven not to cause birth defects.” Neither has C-Span.

• “Some people are saying it’s going to bring about a glorious utopia.” I’m impressed that anyone can turn that into a negative, but they regularly do.

• “This shouldn’t be our top priority.” Yeah, almost certainly not. But it’s neither feasible nor desirable to put all of our resources into our top priority.

• “Some people want to make it mandatory.” I’m all in favor of orneriness, but refusing to use seat belts because Personal Liberty just means you end up as pro-authoritarian propaganda when you die of disobedience.

• “It could get adopted too widely.” Often true, but often not relevant yet when it’s brought up. And like all of these it’s deployed selectively—if everybody on Earth insisted on golfing regularly, I’m pretty sure we’d all die, but that’s not an argument against golfing.

In Closing

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken. Think it possible, even, that people you like might be mistaken, and people you have every reason to mistrust might be right. Otherwise, we end up here, with Monsanto trying to save lives, and Greenpeace foiling them.

Activists in the Philippines break into and destroy a field trial of Golden Rice, 2013.

1. Oxygen: Caused a worldwide mass extinction event. Kills divers when inhaled at high pressure. Responsible for almost all fires. Also rust.

Dishwashers: Several people have died by tripping and falling onto a dishwasher full of knives. Sometimes I accidentally put something that’s not dishwasher-safe in a dishwasher.

Fire hydrants: Have killed multiple people. Often you install one and then never need to use it because there aren’t any nearby fires.