Re:US Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case
by dionidium on Monday February 18, 2013 @07:07PM
(#5241704)
This is interesting. For example, anyone who has seen the Corporation loves to go on and on about Monsanto's industrial chemical business, agent orange, and so on. Which is fine, I guess, but Monsanto doesn't even have a chemical division anymore. It was spun off as Solutia in 1997. So, when we're trying to have a serious conversation about the harms and benefits of GMOs, instead we get a bunch of noise about how Monsanto is evil because of their participation in a business they're no longer in and that has nothing to do with agriculture. Huh?
Otherwise smart people are just blindly angry about GMOs for some reason. It's really disappointing.
Re:US Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case
by nitrogen on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @08:16AM
(#5244049)
Some people are angry about Monsanto's actual behavior, not about the concept of genetically modified organisms.
Re:US Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case
by dorkrawk on Monday February 18, 2013 @07:59PM
(#5241930)
Like declaring public opinion bankruptcy?
How well did that work for Xfinity?
Re:US Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case
by sillysaurus on Monday February 18, 2013 @08:31PM
(#5242042)
How well did that work for Xfinity?
Well, https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=xfinity
"XFINITY by Comcast"
Changing one's name doesn't work if you merely add to it.
This suggests a third way out: they could change their name.
For a growing number of people, the name "Monsanto" may as well be "Diablo". For better or worse, labels are abstractions for humans to comprehend the world, and they often influence our thinking in ways we don't perceive and can't resist. Just look at how destructive labels have been throughout history.
So if your name means evil, then changing it may be a way out.
This isn't as unrealistic as it sounds. The only reason I'd thought badly of Monsanto was due to the tales of (sometimes exaggerated) horror from the people around me. But if Monsanto does their rebranding with some finesse, and completely abandons their old name, then it wouldn't be as easy for the general public to merely lead each horror story with, "So here's what that company, formerly Monsanto, used to do..."
In fact, they'd likely have to qualify the horror story with "used to do" (as opposed to "currently acts this way") since a new label would force most people to think of them as a new company, whether or not they realize it. "New label = new thing" is practically hardwired into our brain, and the effects reveal themselves when we communicate.