Evil companies that aren't WalMart

[b_carville]

Monsanto. After decades of poisoning the planet's soil, water and foodchain with e.g. DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, rBGH and Roundup they are now (with other agritech giants) lobbying to effectively outlaw local organic crops and kill off small farms nationwide under the pretext of food safety (HR 875, S 425). Their GMO terminator seeds, which will not grow without the patented chemicals they also sell and which produce sterile crops, are designed to put food growers in virtual bondage. Add their mobster-like tactics of bullying and intimidation to enforce this scheme, and you're looking at evil in corporate form.

Invalid Link Removed

I've been reading about this lately.
It's truly frightning!
Corporations (Nestle being one of them)are trying to corner the world's water supply as well.

 

[mike_v_s]

Evil beyond the abilities of most people to even comprehend. Psychiatric drugs are particularly appalling.

Lots of good books...but people here don't read anyway, so they can just watch a DVD of The Kids in the Hall's Brain Candy and get the general idea and a yukfest in the bargain.

Awesome. I was hoping for a Cliff's Notes version but something with pictures that makes me giggle is even better.

Mike

 

[dj150888]

So.....lots of hatred for the oil and pharmaceutical industries.....

....my two most likely future employers.

Anyone wanna take a swing in advance?!

Lot of idealism and downright naivity in this thread re: the replacement of fossil fuels.

 

[KoalaDummy]

i never heard any of these stories

 

[TheVoiceless]

General ******* Motors. They pioneered the concept of buying things you can't quite afford on 'credit'. And the rest is history.

Lets take this one further. All American car companies. They bought the patent for the electric car many years ago so that they could grease the palms of the oil industry. GM can go under for all I care. And the fools at AIG that are giving out these bonuses after receiving a hand out need to serve jail time or pay us back. Pretty much any American company these days.

 

[mike_v_s]

I love it when a nefarious plan comes together.

Mike

 

[MatticusMania]

Okay, fictive scenario:

You're dating a super hot girl. One day, the thought pops in your head, "Hey, what if there was three of her? That would be awesome."

Who do you turn to?

Thats when you call Massive Dynamics. As far as I can tell, The Umbrella Corp. hasnt quite caught up with the whole cloning thing, at least not without some less than stellar results.

 

[MatticusMania]

I said it in another thread, but to reiterate, We humans are a nasty virus.

 

[machine gewehr]

Evil companies?Sadowsky for making the best basses out there and not being buyable by me.You Mr. Roger Sadowsky,sir,are an evil man.

 

[TheVoiceless]

"alternatives coming into development" is a key phrase here. Right now, the planet isn't running on "alternatives coming into development", is it? It would seem that anyone ignoring that fact might be missing something. Let's say that everyone stopped pushing those unsustainable energy sources tomorrow. Care to hazard a guess as to what follows?

The Great Green Utopia isn't going to happen overnight (oh, and I think it'll be a shade or two darker than a lot of people like to say) and until the infrastructure is ready for some kind of mass change-over the name calling is comical. So, I'll let others dump money and resources (assuming they are putting their money where their mouth is, most don't) into the "alternatives coming into development".

My money and resources are going into the current energy sources as they are still very much needed and the likely bridge until we know what the "alternatives coming into development" are in final form.

Mike

Would you consider an Oil company that blocks the progress of such an alternative fuel evil? I sure would. Its not evil to want to build a company to provide jobs, but when you are holting progress for your own gain that's being selfish.

I think we are behind the times. These alternatives have been around for decades and centuries. Had we pursued them like we should have we could be many years ahead. And computer technology is exponential. So how the heck would we need to wait more then 10 years to begin phasing out old forms of fuel and technology?

The technology is available. Its just not profitable yet.

 

[mike_v_s]

The technology is available. Its just not profitable yet.

And therein lies a chunk of the problem. No one was willing to foot the bill for gasoline at $4.50 per gallon, so who are you banking on paying for the complete reformatting of infastructure across the country? Are you willing to pay for it? What if the cost for the changeover and the new fuel ends up costing you MORE than the equivalent of $4.50 per gallon? Still on board with it?

Before we even get to that stage, who is going to make the decision on which platform to go with? Let me help: The consumer....when it is cheap enough to replace gasoline. Until that happens, the arguments for a premature changeover are pointless.

Mike

 

[mike_v_s]

Would you consider an Oil company that blocks the progress of such an alternative fuel evil? I sure would. Its not evil to want to build a company to provide jobs, but when you are holting progress for your own gain that's being selfish.

I'd consider that business and a facet of it that everyone should accept. The cheapest platform will prevail. It must not have taken too much to block the progress or there must not have been much progress to block, because the consumer is like water and will always seek the lowest price for their return.

People who like to make money know this. If the alternatives had been fiscally vialble, they would be here because anyone able to turn a buck on that technology would have done so.

Beyond that, the consumers now lamenting the evils of the oil companies should look to themselves for expecting the energy industry to turn itself on its head while they continued to buy the products that ensured it would never happen.

I should teach a college course.

Mike

EDIT: I'm going to point to the overwhelming success of the Prius as a good example of the consumer embracing technology when it arrives in a package the market accepts and at a price the market can bear. If Big Oil were so hell bent on crushing this....why is the Prius here and selling better than ever? Hell, people at my office drive them.

 

[TheVoiceless]

And therein lies a chunk of the problem. No one was willing to foot the bill for gasoline at $4.50 per gallon, so who are you banking on paying for the complete reformatting of infastructure across the country? Are you willing to pay for it? What if the cost for the changeover and the new fuel ends up costing you MORE than the equivalent of $4.50 per gallon? Still on board with it?

Before we even get to that stage, who is going to make the decision on which platform to go with? Let me help: The consumer....when it is cheap enough to replace gasoline. Until that happens, the arguments for a premature changeover are pointless.

Mike

Sure people would be willing to flip the bill. But like I said we would already be at that point had not The EVIL company's held back the technology. We don't need to get rid of oil. I never said that. But if we could supplement our energy use then we would all win. The truth is this could have happened decades ago. And if we are going to pay $4.00 a gallon anyway I would rather have it help us find new technology's then line the greedy pockets.

The point is greed will slow progress. And to me that is selfish and in return evil. Windmills have been around for centuries. Had we bothered to improve this design as time went on we could have a version of wind energy now that could help us be more earth and wallet friendly.

Ok off to band practice. Thanks for the debate. Peace!!!

 

[mike_v_s]

Sure people would be willing to flip the bill.

I disagree. No one is going to foot anything that cost more than they are comfortable paying. I'm confident enough in this to bet that the first widespread use of anything in place of gasoline will be marketed in "gasoline" terms in an effort to sell it to the consumer (e.g. "the range on this technology is the equivalent of paying $2.00 per gallon!!!). Unless they can peg a number the consumer feels is a good trade off, you and 6 other guys in a commune in New Hampshire will be the only people paying to have the technology standardized.

The point is greed will slow progress. And to me that is selfish and in return evil.

I think greed speeds progress. People with nothing to gain but "feeling right" aren't as motivated as the guy who thinks he can be set for life by bringing a new technology to market.

Windmills have been around for centuries. Had we bothered to improve this design as time went on we could have a version of wind energy now that could help us be more earth and wallet friendly.

The economies of scale are one of the the windmill's problems. There are others, too...like the number of viable locations.

Ok off to band practice. Thanks for the debate. Peace!!!

Have a great time. I hope you're taking a bike!!

Mike

 

[The BurgerMeister]

The Umbrella Corporation.

hee-hee! good one!

You know who I frickin' hate? Whole Foods. They come off like the greenest, nicest, most people- and earth-loving company ever born, but under the veneer they are just the same rapacious, greedy, wasteful, mean-spirited, and hypocritical corporate robots that they pretend not to be.

I don't mean individual WFM workers, BTW, I mean the corporation.

+1 to that!

 

[AmazingGracePlayer]

Every single company that makes lacrosse gear is evil. A piece of plastic costs over $80.
Rutgers University is evil.

 

[embellisher]

Would you consider an Oil company that blocks the progress of such an alternative fuel evil? I sure would. Its not evil to want to build a company to provide jobs, but when you are holting progress for your own gain that's being selfish.

I think we are behind the times. These alternatives have been around for decades and centuries. Had we pursued them like we should have we could be many years ahead. And computer technology is exponential. So how the heck would we need to wait more then 10 years to begin phasing out old forms of fuel and technology?

The technology is available. Its just not profitable yet.

So, a company should not be allowed to make a profit? How long would such a company stay in business? How would they pay their employees? How would they market their product? They are losing money. They can't afford stuff like R&D, marketing, advertising, raw materials, etc.

 

[embellisher]

Sure people would be willing to flip the bill. But like I said we would already be at that point had not The EVIL company's held back the technology. We don't need to get rid of oil. I never said that. But if we could supplement our energy use then we would all win. The truth is this could have happened decades ago. And if we are going to pay $4.00 a gallon anyway I would rather have it help us find new technology's then line the greedy pockets.

But we are no longer paying $4.00 a gallon, in the US anyway.

As far as supplementing our energy use, the same people who are crying about the pollution and supposed climate change caused by burning fossil fuels blocked the construction of nuclear power plants in this country for decades.

Yes, there is the issue of storing the waste, I understand that. Of course, a lot of proposed waste storage plans have been scuttled by environmentalists as well!

But nuclear fission has less impact on the environment than anything other than solar or wind power, and even that is debatable.

There are countries in Europe that get most of their electricity from nuclear power plants. Thanks to the 70's and 80's version of environmentalism, we get most of ours from coal, oil, and natural gas.

Before you blame big oil for our dependence on fossil fuels, you might start by blaming the short sighted environmentalists who put our country way behind on the best alternate source of energy.

 

[embellisher]

I was gonna say "Yeah, but you forgot steam power", and then I remembered what it is that heats steam

You can use wood. But that is not near as efficient as coal, oil, or natural gas.

 

[Fassa Albrecht]

You can use wood. But that is not near as efficient as coal, oil, or natural gas.

It's also a lot harder to get reliable and large amounts of wood to burn.