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The article linked above is indeed one of the most insane things I've recently read. The basic idea is this: We need to be able to produce more food. So let's hack photosynthesis itself to be more "efficient." Dot dot dot, problem solved.
On one level, it's nothing new: We've been genetically engineering plants for decades. On another, it's astonishing in its blindness. At no point in the article are the words "capitalism" or "economy" used. There is one passing reference to "politics," in which the author points out that the last round of intensive breeding in the 70s that allowed for our current levels of food production was "politically" motivated insofar as it was a way of fighting communism in Asia. This "Green Revolution" cased major problems, the author argues, including our current climate crisis (in part). But at no point do they draw the obvious parallel to the *current* situation, which is virtually identical: We need more food and we want to beat the goddamned Chinese communists, so let's try and increase crop yields yet again. Should the result be any different? The author actually suggests with a straight face that increasing crop yields through hacking photosynthesis would *decrease* the amount of land used for crops. As though Jevons Paradox hasn't already been understood for 150 years.
I shouldn't be stunned by this kind of thing anymore, but it still gets me sometimes. Rather than change even the tiniest element of social relations that have existed for just a few hundred years (produce less, change wage labor, tax someone, cooperate, plan better, etc.), it appears more reasonable to seemingly intelligent people to hack a two-billion-year-old metabolic process and then sell the result. Or to put it another way, these people propose doing again the exact same thing that we've already done dozens of times — increase yields (and therefore exhaustible inputs), pray, and let the masters reap the profits as it all turns to shit the next time we bump into the limits of perpetual growth.
On yet another level, this is just straight up propaganda for billionaire fantasies. Three genetic engineering projects are mentioned in the article, all funded by Bill fucking Gates. He's mentioned eight times. He's got good people on the PR team at the Gates Foundation, to be sure, but it's just a bit too obvious here. Maybe be a little more subtle next time you buy space in The New Yorker, Billy.
I could go on with the astounding stupidity of everything in this article, but it's really not worth the trouble. I guess the point is that these people — the people who come up with ideas like this and write articles like this — never learn. It's not in their interest to learn anything from the past or change anything in the present, at least not anything fundamental. The logic of production, circulation, and profit is strong. It breaks people's brains in ways they aren't even aware of. And that's part of what keeps it all going.