
The Kickstarter Culture Wars - replicatorblog
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2149613-1,00.html
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jrkelly
One of the big complaints about GMO plants is that the first generation were
designed to meet the needs of industrial agriculture rather than consumers.
Pesticide-resistance was added, not better taste. Now along comes a consumer-
focused GMO plant and that is attacked too. It's very frustrating for those of
us in the field.

~~~
replicatorblog
It would be great if you or someone on your team did a blog post addressing
this issue. I'm generally in favor of GMOs in all their forms, but there
aren't many good, non-Monsanto, voices that get heard over the screedy
shouters and milquetoast "better safe than sorry" types.

For instance, what is the real worst case scenario? Would it be Kudzu meets
glow sticks? Man eating plants? Or just a bunch of $50 sprouts that only glow
in the most technical sense of the word?

~~~
mvdileo
If you want to hear scientists un-affiliated with industry talk about genetic
engineering in a thoughtful way, it's happening over at
[http://www.biofortified.org/](http://www.biofortified.org/)

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swamp40
I think this article is spot-on. Don't get too hung up on the genetically
modified stuff - that is just being used as an example.

The technologists are slowly moving to IndieGoGo. Scanadu, Kreyos, Canary,
Ubuntu Edge - all recent IndieGoGo campaigns that went well over $1M.

Kickstarter's "No product simulations" and "can only buy one" rules are
chasing technologists away. And I don't think Kickstarter cares.

IndieGogo's largest problem now is that business owners are still terrified
Paypal will randomly decide to keep all their money (1).

If I was Indiegogo, I would move over to Amazon Payments and be done with it.

(1) [http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/glassup-raised-100k-on-
ind...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/glassup-raised-100k-on-indiegogo-
but-paypal-is-refusing-to-pay-up/)

~~~
nl
I believe Amazon Payments cannot be used to pay people outside the US.

My understanding is that IndieGoGo initially picked up a lot of momentum from
non-US based projects merely by offering a non-Amazon Payments based
alternative.

~~~
brodo
Amazon Payments now works in some countries outside the US. I don't know since
when though.

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205guy
I think the article is beating around the bush by calling this a "culture war"
and stereotyping a lot of people as "techies," "hipster artists," "creatives,"
etc. Also, it really has nothing to do with whether the result is open sourced
or not.

GMOs have become a purely political issue. Originally, they were a scientific
and technological issue, but then big corporations got a hold of it, captured
the regulatory bodies, bought^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied some politicians, and sued
people all the way to the supreme court. So now it's a question of whether you
believe people and corps should be free to tinker with genes and release them
into the wild based on self-made safety studies, or whether there should be
more laws to regulate (or even ban) GMOs.

So all the people threatening to quit Kickstarter over this are taking a
political stand, whereas Kickstarter is more just trying to avoid the hot
potato (GMO of course), just as they do with guns.

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angersock
Is anyone aware of a well-articulated reasoning published by Kickstarter for
this decision? It really does seem quite silly to arbitrarily disallow GMOs as
something not worth funding, especially given that we've been doing it in one
form or another for millenia.

EDIT: Clarified by a response, apparently they're only disallowing GMO
_rewards_ , not _projects_.

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jack-r-abbit
But they are not disallowing GMO _projects_. You just can't give out any GMO
_rewards_. I still think it is a stupid addition to the rules but I just
wanted to make sure we understood what they are limiting.

~~~
jrkelly
As the article points out, the main driver of all the big kickstarter
campaigns is a reward. So in large part this decision prevents GMO work from
being funded.

~~~
gknoy
Would they allow the reward being a special coupon which lets you order the
product for $cheap? :)

~~~
dnautics
"No contests, raffles, coupons, or lifetime memberships."

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dnautics
Well, the glowing plant group claimed "radical openness" \- "will be sharing
online all of the work we are doing - the ups as well as the downs."

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-
plan...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-
natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/469999)

It's been backed for two months so far, and not much progress has been posted
on the glowingplant website

So either they are failing in their promise to be open, or not actually doing
any work.

~~~
angersock
"Day 55: Spent time in lab running gels--again. No results--again. FML."

~~~
TheLegace
Ya my girlfriend who is in neuroscience would tell me everyday about dumb
people in her lab ruining her gels, which means having to wait hours more for
the next one.

She says she's never working in a lab again, even though she was very good at
it. Her supervisor/superiors want to take her results. Her peers won't share
or collaborate with her. And there are barely any online resources to really
optimize/enhance her work and make her life easier.

~~~
voltagex_
Sounds like every bad office.

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bsbechtel
Given the whole concept of Kickstarter is letting the crowd decide if a
project is worth funding, it seems to me that in keeping with this mantra,
they would be open to allowing any idea be opened up for funding. Not allowing
GMOs as 'rewards' seems like a silly cop-out.

Giving in to complaints such as this by the community sounds good in the
short-term, but will be very bad in the long-term. It is basically saying, if
you don't agree with our morals, you're not welcome on Kickstarter. This will
open up the door for many other niche crowdfunding sites to support projects
that Kickstarter doesn't allow, and will ultimately bring them more
competition.

~~~
dnautics
It's worthwhile thinking that maybe kickstarter is just CYA (CIA?). Imagine
this scenario: a GMO project is backed by kickstarter. Someone takes the seeds
to somewhere in a foreign country that kickstarter operates in where GMO is
banned. A fuss is raised, lawsuits, kickstarter is fined big time by this
operating country (or is forced to close shop).

~~~
bsbechtel
That's a good point. While the analogy isn't 100% correct, this seems similar
to giving DMCA immunity to file sharing sites. They are just the enablers or
pass-through agents, not the ones who commit the crimes. I'd be curious to
know what laws actually could apply to this situation. Regardless, you can't
innovate by not taking risks and having a cover your a __attitude. If you don
't take the risks, your competitor will, and if those risks pan out for your
competitor, you'll go out of business anyway.

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CreRecombinase
Are t-shirts now prohibited as rewards, as they are almost universally contain
GMO cotton?

~~~
anonymous
Only if the t-shirt is alive. They've disallowed alive genetically modified
organisms, not their products or derivatives.

~~~
Dylan16807
Technically still not allowed:

>Projects cannot resell items or offer rewards not produced by the project or
its creator

~~~
dragonwriter
I'm pretty sure that that doesn't require every input used in creating the
reward to be created by the project or its creators, so a T-Shirt created with
(dead) GMO cotton which was produced by (e.g., screen printed under contract
for) the project would still be allowed, even if neither the cotton nor the
ink was produced by the project.

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voodoomagicman
I just deleted my Kickstarter account and let them know that I will not be
backing projects unless they change this policy.

I urge others who care about science, the environment, and the human condition
in general to do the same.

~~~
dnautics
isn't this a bit extreme? I'm launching a science project that will use GMOs,
and there will be other ways of crowdfunding. I was never in the position of
using kickstarter from the outset... So this doesn't affect me, but I don't
think it's really that much of a big deal. There are some _really_ compelling
projects on kickstarter, and your reaction seems like throwing out the baby
with the bathwater.

~~~
andrewcooke
christ. how many apologies can you make for the company in one thread?

can't you give voodoomagicman a small fraction of the tolerance and respect
you seem to have for kickstarter? for kickstarter, doing what they want is
"their choice", but for anyone who decides to boycott in response it's "a bit
extreme"? in your world do only commercial entities have free will?

~~~
dnautics
the "extreme" part is not vodoomagicman choosing to drop kickstarter. The
extreme part is him exhorting others to do so as well. Kickstarter, as far as
I know, has not exhorted other crowdfunding outfits to also reject GMO
projects.

Also, if I were in charge of kickstarter, I would not have made this decision.

~~~
andrewcooke
i respectfully suggest that kickstarter's actions will impact more people than
vodoomagicman's.

~~~
dnautics
Of course, but I can't really be moved to have all too much sympathy for those
people. Kickstarter (and DIY bio funding) isn't an entitlement, and the
enterprising DIY bioer looking to crowdfund can use any number of
alternatives, from crowdtilt to indiegogo, or even roll their own (like
lockitron did).

Being a bit introspective, maybe it's just the obsessive systematizer in me,
but kickstarter (the noun, not the verb) really has always been associated
with "art-like" project, and my brain irrationally wants to keep those silos
up.

Also, when I was setting up my work, I thought about using kickstarter, and
did a little bit of research (a couple of clicks of the mouse) and immediately
realized that my project did not fit the terms and conditions of Kickstarter.
Nobody weeped for me then, nor would I care to (and I'm continually having to
explain to people why I can't use kickstarter), so maybe that's part of why I
seem to be overly apologetic towards the company.

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auggierose
Culture Wars, like in Consider Phlebas?

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doubledub
Seems like a genetically modified artist is the solution.

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jacquesm
If you believe this is wrong then simply create a kickstarter competitor and
let the market sort it out. After all there should be an opportunity there if
they block certain reward structures.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
"simply create a kickstarter competitor" \-- That is not a valid argument
regardless of where you stand on the issue.

