Lil Joshu's Guide to Disagreeing on the Internet!

So, I have noticed that many people on the internet aren't aware of how disagreements
on the internet generally work.

To that end, I have created this handy flowchart to help you with your disagreements
on the internet.

Bookmark and share this page to help you (and those you disagree with) in navigating the rocky waters that are disagreements on the internet!

I hope that this diagram can save you some troubles by recognizing when a debate on the internet is done, and help educate those you disagree with.

Disclaimer:
Flowchart is not 100% comprehensive. There may be edge cases not covered. In these situations it is suggested that you go sit down, rethink your life, come to a deeper understanding of where you or the world went wrong, and then post a comment below about these mysterious edge cases so an updated chart can be made later.

(You may need to scroll to see the full image, it's quite large!)

A bit about the science of Gender

People have been going on all across the internet for awhile lately on a million things gender-related.

This goes from gender-issues in bathrooms, to who's running for president, to "traditional gender roles", yatta yatta.

As someone who was actually in graduate level genetics-related stuff, I feel I can shed some light on these issues.

Chromosomally speaking, there are *more* than 6 human genders. (Joshua Kennon has a good article on it here: [1] ) And chances are you've met a number of people who aren't XY or XX and you didn't even know it. Heck, you may even *be* something besides XY or XX and not even know it. There's a decent chance that anyone you know that "had difficulty" having kids was in a relationship where one of the partners was one of these, or if you met a guy who got breast cancer there's a good chance[2]. There's a lot of research into helping them have kids[3]. Doesn't mean they *can't* have kids, just it's harder [4] (especially with the wrong mate). Most people who aren't XX or XY don't they aren't and just assume they're male or female. And why do they do so? Gender identity is a different set of genetics altogether. [5][6] (Your biological sex is decided by the SRY gene, your gender identity is decided mainly by your 5a reductase levels, controlled by a variety of other genes.) Genetically speaking, they latch onto one group (identified by pheromones). And these different combinations of identities, genitals, chromosomal changes, etc. actually helped people fill roles way back in the tribal days by mingling in epigenetic ways [7]. (That's a whole different topic if you want to get into details though).

The thing is, it's a thing, it's real, and it's not that uncommon. What *is* unnatural is the separation of the genders the way we have it now.[8] We didn't use to do things that way until well into the agricultural revolution. Most of our species history has us only caring about a person's genitals when it comes time when people want to breed. That's it. There was no Wilma bringing Fred Flintstone his steak and him going off to work. Old archeology shows that the pre-ag-rev humans had everyone doing everythng. It wasn't a matter of "guys" vs "girls", it was a matter of "our tribe" vs "everything else."

Although, maybe that's the problem right there. Our tribe, our community, has become global. We can pick up a phone and dial someone half a world away and carry on a conversation. Some people may have forgotten that we're all the human tribe, and are looking for something else, so they start treating their gender as their tribe instead. "This is our tribe's [girls/guys] territory, no other tribes [guys/girls] allowed in our [treehouse/bathroom/politics/field of employment].

We're a global society now. We're one big tribe. It shouldn't be an "us" vs "them", at this point. We grew beyond that. So instead of turning inward to make new microtribes, keep looking outward. There's still plenty our tribe has to stand up against[9].

Like I say, it's not "us" vs "them." It's still our human tribe, but at this point in time, instead of "our tribe" vs "lions" or "us" vs "the drought", it's "humanity" vs "the cold black of space that prevents us from surviving in the event of an asteroid wiping us all out at once like the dinos" or "us, our tribe of humanity" vs "silly infighting because so many have lost sight of the fact we're a big tribe now."

So anyone who is still whining on about other people's gender identities.
Literally, please stop being literally small minded (note: not literally small-brained, there's a difference). There's a bigger world out there we have to concern ourselves with.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] - http://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/
[2] - http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9494523
[3] - http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199802263380905,  http://www.eje-online.org/content/23/3/227.short, etc.
[4] - http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282%2812%2900677-2/abstract?cc=y=
[5] - http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM197905313002201
[6] -  http://www.pnas.org/content/90/8/3368.short
[7] - https://heroismscience.wordpress.com/the-search-for-a-hero-gene-fact-or-fiction/
[8] - http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630252?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[9] - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00960.x/full

Political Alignment

A simple graph demonstrating the alignment of political parties.

Those who change the world

Those who change the world

It dawned on me at one point in a philosophy class that all those who change the world generally fit into one of four categories, and those four categories neatly fell into a matrix.

Now, the names probably aren't the best (just the best I could come up with), so allow me to elaborate.

The Cardinal Directions
Movements vs Individual Actions

Changes come in two forms: People making a change by getting many other people to make the change with them, or those who have a single action that alters the world significantly in some way. 

Modifiers vs Creators

Actions come in two flavors, those that are new, and those that start something new. Modifiers are those which change something already in existence, and Creators are those which bring in something new that wasn't there before.

On good or bad, on world changers & normal people

A few things I feel should be noted. Being part of any of the world changer groups doesn't necessarily makes the person "good" or "bad." It's merely a label for the type of change they made. As such, I will endeavor to include both good and bad people in my explanations of each quadrant.
 

Further, not everyone will really fit into the four quadrants: some people just don't have much impact on the world. The Quadrants of world changes is more a tool to show what a person needs to do to change the world. It should also be noted that different personality types lend themselves more to different quadrants. Someone who is more introverted would likely be more inclined to be an inventor than a leader; someone who is more idealistic might do better as a teacher than an eliminator, and so forth.

It should also be pointed out that just because someone who changes the world in one way doesn't mean they won't change the world in another. A leader can legislate something out of existance (turning them into an eliminator as well); a teacher can become a leader if their teachings are found to support an organization; an inventor may become a teacher as they help people understand new ways of doing things with whatever they invented. The possibilities go on and on.

The Quadrants

Teachers are those who start movements. Although normal teachers (those in schools) often fall into the category of teachers, not all do. Anyone who takes the role of sharing new ideas with others is a teacher. Some good examples of teachers include Rosa Parks, the confederate veterans who started the KKK, Ghandi, the Beatles, and Julian Assange. Basically all who share information with people that they hadn't previously shared. The strength of a teacher comes from their ability to start movements. They create movements that weren't there to begin with, see what other people have missed and share it with them. 

Inventors are those who bring new things in the world that weren't there before that the world then has to adapt to. Of course inventors such as Edison, huo yao who invented gunpowder, Richard Gatling who created the Gatling gun, and those invented the smart phone and the internet fit into this category. However, there are inventions beyond just the creation of new physical objects. There's also Nakamoto inventing the bitcoin, the Greeks inventing democracy, and the ancient Egyptians inventing the scientific method. There's also the "inventions" of architects such as a bridge which allows travel and trade to happen that could before or someone who sets up a new set of communication lines to a town that didn't have them before. Inventors are any who make something new.

Leaders are those who modify existing movements. Martin Luther King Jr., Leaders of countries, Presidents of companys, and anyone else who can take a group of people or organization already gathered for a cause and modify it in some way. They may make the movement more focused and better to achieve its goals when it wasn't effective before; a leader may also take a group and alter it towards different ends, such as Hitler who took a socialist movement and twisted into a fascist movement.

Eliminators are those who remove things from the world that people once expected. Like any category, they can be both good or bad. For example. Abraham Lincoln with the emancipation proclamation effectively eliminated slavery from America, but on the other hand, there's also the Unabomber who removed a building (and many lives) in Oklahoma City. Both terrorists and soldiers fall into this category, as do assassins and freedom fighters; those who destroy weapon stashes, bridges, leaders, buildings and more to which society must then adapt to the sudden change.

Raise the minimum wage to $1000/sec!

LET'S RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $1000/sec!!!!

Amusingly, I sat down and decided to really analyze it once when someone sarcastically said, "If it's so great to raise the minimum wage to $18 or $22 an hour, why not $30, $40, or $50?" So I really sat down and thought it over... and the picture was a lot less dire than they seemed to think it would be.

Although I'm not necessarily advocating it, here's what it'd look like if we raised the minimum... let's go crazy here... to $1000 dollars per second. On top of that, let's tie that number to inflation, so if inflation goes up, so does the number, so there's no "inflating until it acts just like things do now just with more following zeroes."

Well, first off, Big business will collapse under that strain. Not even they could take that. Sure, a few could hire people for awhile, and there's a few that could make it that are really profitable per man-hour worked (I'm looking at you, Mojang and professional sports!) Now, that said... corporations collapse. No dodging that one. (Side note, this also means no more corporate lobbying, very limited corporate propaganda, etc.) Effectively, there's some rich shareholders, but their start losing money fast if they try to hold on to their power, which they won't because they like their money, which means all stockholders cash out post haste. This results in a completely crashed stock market from which there is no recovery. Those who have money try to flee the country to salvage their finances... but guess what? The airlines aren't able to afford their people and their pilots to their private jets will make out like bandits (enough for those pilots to buy their own planes... keep that in mind, this is where it starts to get fun).

The outflux from the major corporations and their shareholders as they scramble to leave would dump decades worth of wages in a matter of minutes. All of a sudden these pilots can buy their own private jet, and instead of making decent wages, all of a sudden can be self employed with no loans. At first, these pilots are going to really be able to live it up. (There will be lots of other jobs that will get a similar situation.)

And yes... the small mom & pop places with a dozen employees will collapse. Poof, they're gone too.... or are they?
Their employees are gone, yes... but the mom & pop? They're still around. They own the place. It'd be silly for them to try and pay themselves. They do have to shrink the store a bit though. Maybe cut back to a tenth of what it was. But... all of a sudden... they have customers. Why? Because who else are people going to buy from? The corporation that doesn't exist anymore? So, husband and wife, no more employees, are all of a sudden having more customers than they can handle because literally 100% of the population is coming to them instead of Wal-Mart. They can charge hand over fist for their food... until one of their previous employees is sitting there thinking, "Hey, I know all the steps on how to run that... I'm going to start my own food place." Sure, he'll never grow to having employees, but D#$* he gets more bang for his effort than he used too.

And this would be mirrored everywhere. Every business becomes a sole proprietorship without employees. Nobody's becoming billionaires or even millionaires at this point (except for those who are really good at automating everything).. but, everyone gets to work the hours they want, every mom & pop is getting enough customers to keep itself afloat, everyone's their own boss, and how much money you make is purely dependent on your own smarts and dedication.

At this point, laws are no longer being lobbied to benefit the rich and the powerful. In fact, it goes back that instead of being poor compared to the lobbyists and corporate leaders, the wealthiest position is politician.... and the only way to get there now is pleasing the greatest number of people, not kissing up to corporations (there are no corporations to kiss up to anymore, remember?) So all of a sudden, politicians have to work for the people. There goes about half of the glut in the government right there (subsidies to corporations? What corporations?) The economy flip-flops from a top-down system ruled by wall-street and the megacorp but into a bottom-up system ruled by the average person who's pulling his own weight.

This also leads to another thing... so many different intellectual properties are owned by corporations. Whatever doesn't get sold in the wake of the collapse, all of a sudden becomes public domain. GE, BP, and many other companies had been buying up competing technologies and never making them. It's actually been a pretty standard tactic in corporations for some time now... they don't want to have rework their system to handle new ideas, but they don't want someone else disrupting their market. They have the patents to extremely efficient cars, so with them gone, and the patents entering public domain, that means that car enthusiasts can start putting together and building those cars.... oh, and by the way, remember when I mentioned automation? Those factories will still be sitting there. Some of the richer people will buy those factories at bottom dollar. They can't hire employees, but they can automate at least parts of the process. Maybe not the entire process, but enough to be able to sell some larger parts. Then, before dealers, a new business will spring up... those who buy car sections from various sellers, and complete the task of putting it together, then they sell the car to the dealer (See what happened? All of a sudden the "grunt" factory worker is his own business, making respectable income for his work... getting profit from each car made). All of a sudden, you're seeing cars hitting pavement that are getting 80 miles to the gallon without any corporate stupidity blocking it, not to mention high efficiency electric cars that have been previously blocked.

So, to answer... raise minimum wage to $1000/second.... and, surprisingly, the world doesn't look worse in many regards, just different.

Finding Love - Technical Nerdy Edition

School teaches lots of subjects you need for life.
Mathmatics, Arts, Phys. Ed, History, etc.

However, there are also topics that aren't taught that people desperately need, and that's how to find and maintain romantic relationships. For a number of people, going through life flailing and failing until they stumble on love strikes them as "good enough." But, as is often said, "Nerds do it better." So this article is going to delve into the nitty gritty of finding love in life. As a geek/nerd who has found love, I would like to share the lessons I've learned with the world.

First off, we're going to break a number of preconceptions of the "don't"s before we get into the "do"s.

DON'TS

1. The traditional methods of finding love don't work, so don't use them.
40% - 50% of marriages end in divorce in the U.S.[1] This means that half of the time that after going through everyone they could date, meeting everyone, picking and choosing, after they finally think they've found "the one" they're completely and utterly wrong. With so many people looking for love and putting so much time, effort, and money into it and coming out horribly wrong bespeaks of lousy methods. Any scientist with only 50% success rate on his hypothesis after all tests are run would declare the hypothesis a horrible failure. After all the work, it's literally a coin flip. And that's not good enough, so don't accept it. Further, half of our dating/romance culture is based off of lies told to us by people who want to sell movies. Real life love doesn't work how it does in the movies. The movies, the stories, and all the rest are pretty much lies made to sell stuff. It's how people wish love worked.

2. Dating doesn't work
Seriously, it doesn't. Dating doesn't work. Sure there's successes, but failures outnumber the successes. Dating (especially when you tack on the word dating) makes an artificial atmosphere with artificial expectations. It's not "normal behavior" on a date, but if you're trying to build a relationship to find if the person matches with you, both of you acting how you normally don't act doesn't help either of you. Now, if going out and watching movies and eating out at fancy restaurants and such is what you normally do when you're alone or with a group of friends, that's a different matter. But don't go out of your way doing things you don't normally do. It hurts both parties.

3. Don't turn down friends when you're looking
So, a friend may have asked you out. You're tempted to turn them down because they're a friend and you "don't want to hurt the relationship." Stop right there. That is a horrible reason to turn down a date. Why, you may ask? Two reasons.
a. You obviously like being around them enough for them to be your friend, this is two-thirds of a successful romance relationship right there (one third their personality and one third their social interaction with you, the remaining third being interest in their body).
b. Turning down a friend who is asking you out will hurt your relationship more than saying yes. Give them at least a couple dates to see if sparks fly. If sparks don't fly, point it out to them, and at least both parties will known any relationship with each-other is a dead end rather than being left with an awkward tension for the entirety of the friendship. It's easier to look at eachother and laugh and say, "Yea, we tried it, not going to work" a week later than spending the next two years constantly drifting apart because neither actually knows for sure, and causing resentment for not even giving a chance.

Also note, some may think this is advice for just girls who "friendzone" guys, but no. It's both ways. Many girls who are "one of the guys" have tried to get their guy friends to go out with them, but guys turn them down because it'd "be like dating one of the guys" or "it'd be like dating a sister." That's B.S. and anyone turning down a friend purely because they're a friend is a bad friend.

4. Don't ask them out just because they're hot
You've heard the phrase, "beauty is only skin deep." Well, it's true on multiple levels. How they look IS important. How they look will affect how much you're drawn to them physically, and sexual attraction is important for a healthy romantic relationship.  That said though, it's not the only trait that they have. No matter who you get into a relationship with, their appearance will not improve in the long run. Pretty much everyone is going to end up a wrinkly old prune someday, and you probably want to get together with someone you'll be happy with even then; that means looking past the skin.

5. Don't try to fill the hole in your life or find the person who completes you
Seriously, this is a mistake a lot of people make. If you have a feeling that something in your life is missing, that something isn't quite right, that you have a longing in your chest. Don't look for love. You're not ready for it. Despite all the B.S. that Hollywood throws your way, that feeling of longing and need and emptiness isn't due to a lack of love in your life. It's because of depression or a lack of fulfillment in your life. Sex and romance will give you a short boost due to the associated endorphin rush, but like many drugs, it's a high that quickly goes away. If you have this feeling, love won't fix it in the long run. You need to address this problem in your life first before you look for love. Because any person who looks at you will quickly find you're a downer and they won't want to be around you. See a counselor/psychiatrist/mental health doctor/etc. and see if you're suffering from depression and/or start making changes in your life to get you closer to being the kind of person you want to be.

DO'S

Step 1. Make a list
 Like shopping at a grocery store, the world is full of people who are different options for romance. And, again, like grocery shopping, if you go into the store hungry, you're going to buy a lot of foods you don't need and walk out with something besides what you wanted.
So, make a list of everything you're looking for in a person. Include everything you can think of. Hair color, gender, looks, number (who knows, maybe you'd be happier dating a couple instead of a single person?), hobbies, skills, ambitions, willingness/unlikeliness to move, religion (or lack thereof), philosophical viewpoints, prudishness/sexual-creativity, etc. Now, it's important to know it's very unlikely you'll find someone who matches the entire list. Seriously, other people aren't made to order. So the second part of this step is just as important as making the list...
Prioritize the list.
When you've gotten down everything that you're looking for, list them from most to least important. Thing is, you're unlikely to get the whole list with pretty much anyone you meet, so you have to know what you're willing to sacrifice to get something more important to you. If you get 8 out of the top ten on your list, you're doing quite well for yourself, and you may have just found the person you're looking for.

Step 2. Research the archetype you're looking for.
Say the top of your list is you're looking for someone blonde. Look at demographics and find out where the highest density of people of Northern European descent live nearest you. If you're looking for geek girls, find out about conventions that they might attend. If you're looking for someone who looks good in swimwear, find good beaches or pools nearby. If you're looking for someone who can cook, flirt with people at food compititions. Find out where the people on your list are most likely to be.

Step 3. Research the type of person your archetype would be interested in.
Blogs are great for this. If you're looking for a cook, find the blog of a cook and read about their personal life and tweets. Pay attention to their romantic encounters. Do it for a lot of cooks. Find out what they like, what they dislike as a group.

Step 4. Change yourself.
You've likely heard the saying "Don't change for anybody." This is a lie. We change for people all the time. Just as you wouldn't treat a five year old stranger the same as you would a cop pulling you over for speeding, the person we are is constantly in a state of flux and change based on who we're around. Now, there are some parts of you that you might say, "This is me," that they're core values to who you are and you would never change them. That's fine, don't change those.  On the flip side, learning a new hobby that you might enjoy, losing some weight, changing up some of your clothing choices, developing a taste for some exotic foods you haven't tried before, or learning an instrument is a different matter entirely. Once you've found out what the typical person of your ideal type may like or dislike, change the parts of yourself that don't matter to you. Move yourself closer to that someone your ideal type of person could fall in love with. Further, try to improve yourself overall. Not only is self improvement good for you, it makes almost anyone significantly more attractive.

Step 5. Be the right person in the right place
Knowing what the potential person you're looking for is looking for, and being in the place they'd be is a key to getting someone. Once there, make yourself stand out. Put your shoulders back, stick out your chest, don't hang around the edges but stand in the center, etc. Don't get pushy on people, but be receptive to those who approach you. Don't just look for people to be romantic with, find friends while you're at it. If nothing else, you'll be able to network with people like them. Keep it up, and you'll meet all kinds of people, network, and make all kinds of friends in addition to finding the person for you.

Step 6.  Be active in changing others
A well known truth is that people change. A big hint though, is that people change largely based on the other people they hang out with. Look through your list. See which things are easy to change in someone. Appearance and body are easiest to change, with hobbies being a bit more difficult, and core personality traits being even harder. If one of the tops on your list is that the person you're wanting to be in a relationship with is skinny or in good shape with a tight butt, keep in mind that losing ten pounds a month is quite reasonable, and so a hundred and twenty pounds in a year is fairly easy. If you're willing to be patient, someone who matches a good portion of the top of your list can relatively quickly match the rest. Now, I'm not saying force this one someone, but be willing to give them a chance and work with them. Further, you have to be willing to go through the work with them to get them to that point. Given a year, a "fat slob with a nice personality", if you constantly get them to come with you for walks, cook them healthy (and slimming) food, take them out dancing, and go out for other physical activities, will become a trim babe/hunk with a nice personality who is used to you being in their life (granted, in this scenario, people will be more likely to flirt with them as you progress, but the scales are tipped in your favor, already being in a relationship with them.)

Addendum: Although the next step should make it clear, I should emphasize at this step, this is not about being sneaky. Be honest with them that there are things you think could be better about them and that you're willing to help them get better. Similarly, you'll want to balance it out by asking them what you could get better at, and both sets of improvement could become bonding time for both of you. For example, you may like them to be thinner so you go on regular walks with them, and they may want someone with red hair so you have a monthly trip to the salon that you go together to get your hair dyed.

Step 6. Be honest with them.
Seriously, I can't overstate how important this is. Any bit of dishonesty will compound over time. Tell them you love their cooking when it's only so-so? You're going to deal with it a loooong time. Tell them a dress is hot when it makes them look like a horse? You're going to have to deal with them trying to turn you on with it. Every time you tell them the truth or lie to them, you're either helping them learn about your or get it wrong respectively. Each lie is a chance to be found out and later be blamed of betrayal. It's just not worth it. Now, granted, there's a difference between honesty and rudeness. Telling someone "Those shorts make your butt look like a walrus giving birth" vs "Maybe you should try a different pair of shorts instead" both get the message across but one has more care for their feelings (although some will like the humor that comes with the former, learn how they respond.) That includes being honest if they ask why you developed the hobbies they found interesting about you. If you built them up just for them to find interesting, let them know (although wording is important. Saying "I did it to catch the eye of a geek" won't go well. Saying, "I did it because I knew someday someone like you would appreciate it" is a winner. People do things for mixed reasons often, and in romance, it's almost always just as much about them as it is about you. Share that.

Step 7. Have built in contingencyTalk this out with your romantic partner ahead of time. Early on in the relationship once you reach a point of being "a thing." Tell them what you expect of them, find out what they expect of you. About how committed you should each be, if it's an open dating relationship or closed, etc. At this step, having been honest previously really helps, because with you having that history of honesty with them, they'll likely be honest with you at this step. Further, assume ahead of time that the relationship won't be perfect. People make mistakes, and they'll break your heart sometimes and vice-versa. Talk ahead of time, while you have cool heads, about what to do when that happens. If they cheat on you (or vice-versa) maybe instead of instant break-up, maybe they just get cut off from sex for a month so you can have two tests for STDs (one beginning to catch some types, and one after a month to see if any that take awhile to develop crop up.) Setting clear ideas about expected behavior, but also including a straightforward and simple solution that can be agreed on when that behavior is failed will do much better for your relationship than just blind expectation.

---

[1] Divorce Rates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_the_United_States#Rates_of_divorce


[[Warning: Article includes anecdotal evidence and advice. Further, it is based on a western world perspective with a white male bias. Information may not be fully applicable to other demographics]]

GMO's... why you should be active, but don't take a side.

Transgenics, or GMOS...

I've been looking into this for awhile. As someone who was studying bioinformatics (computer simulations in regard to biological systems) this is a topic that actually although not exactly was in my field, was close enough to where I easily understand the conversations and the scientific papers.

As I see it, this is by no means, nor will it ever be, a black and white issue. If you're pro-transgenics, you're ignorant. If you're anti-GMO, you're ignorant. Not ignorant in the common vernacular of "You're a dummy" (although that may or may not be true) but the proper meaning: ignorant as in "You don't have all the information."

So, here's my quick primer on situations...

1. Not all transgenic/GMO products are created equal.
2. The environmental damage and benefits cannot be measured purely by the organism itself, but also how it's used.
3. The damage and benefits to society cannot be measured purely by crop yields and increased vitamins, but approaching corporate dependency needs to be accounted for and anti-competitive practices must be attended to.
4. No negatives/positives confirmed is not the same as no negatives/positives.
5. As food is central in daily life, the social impacts cannot be ignored.

Into deeper detail:
--- Points to consider ---
* To be proven reasonably safe, many researchers will agree that a three generational rat study should be conducted. This is because a three generational rat study not only observes immediate effects, but also its effects on births, and any effects on genetics (which, if a recessive gene, would not show up until the third generation).
* Any food product that passes a three-generational rat study is very reliably to be as safe as anything else you're going to eat. There's no reasonable reason to avoid these foods on your plate.
* To date, less than a fourth of transgenic/GMO products have undergone a three generational rat study.
* The FDA does not generally require a three-generational rat study. In the few times it does, if it doesn't pass a three-generational rat study, the "no pass" can be cleared by a 90 day single-generation rat study (which is a lot less intensive). This means even if the three-generational rat study proves there's a problem, it can still get a pass by the FDA by passing a weaker test. (This would be akin to trying to taking the ACT to get into college, and when you don't pass the mark, letting you take a middle school math test, and then letting you in if you pass the middle school math test.)
* Almost every three-generational rat test on GMO corn has deemed the corn safe.
* Almost every three-generational rat test on GMO soy has show problems (although the FDA still let it past after the 90-day study).
* The current head of the FDA was a Monsanto employee and hypothetically will be re-hired by Monsanto once his time there ends. This is an obvious conflict of interest.
* GMO crops get patented. Monsanto has abused the courts on this, suing small farmers whom their crops invaded for "infringing on intellectual property" and are, however, protected from those same farmers from suing Monsanto for their invasive plants getting into their farmland. [11]
* Many Monsanto GMO crops don't produce seeds. This means the farmers have to buy from Monsanto again, and again, and again, a ridiculous financial burden on smaller farms. [4]
* The built-in pesticide aspects of a number of the plants are reducing the number of bugs and pests in communities.
* Many of Monsanto's GMO products are made to be used in tandem with Monsanto pesticides. These pesticides are killing bees, which is threatening environmental collapse. [1][2][3]
* Transgenic products, like Golden Rice, can get lots of nutrition to underfed regions of the world, helping increase the quality of life.
* Plants can be engineered with multiple benefits allowing greater yields which can address hunger problems (IF the distribution problem is also addressed.)
* Engineering plants could have many benefits, such as creating high-fiberous plants that could put an end to deforestation.[10]
* Plants could be engineered to produce medicines, allowing for medical needs to be met significantly cheaper and in greater quantity. [9]
* Plants could be engineered to generate clean-burning fuels, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and helping clean our environment. [7]
* Monsanto is, for the most part, not focusing on helpful transgenic products, but profitable ones (stuff made to work alongside their pesticides) that provides no real overall benefit to humanity. - Crop yields are already past what humanity needs to survive, and with that as the primary benefit, it's effectively no benefit. [6]
* Monsanto and associated agricorps have been steadily squeezing out more and more family-owned farms. This means fewer jobs and an upward distribution of wealth. [8]
* Monsanto GMOs built to withstand stronger chemical treatment, encourage farmers to use more chemical treatment. These chemicals are produced at a high cost to the environment in chemical factories.[5]

All said an done, here's my general stance...
I'm for GMOs as long as they don't encourage pesticides, go through a three-generational rat study, don't hurt bees, and provide some benefit to society other than crop yields.

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[1]Pesticides and bees:
http://pollinatorstewardship.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Protecting-Honey-Bees-Florida.pdf
[2] Negative effects of bee loss
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347%2810%2900036-4?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534710000364%3Fshowall%3Dtrue?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534710000364%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
[3]More about bee loss
http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf
[4] Monsanto Terminator Seeds
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/02/19/2212256/monsantos-terminator-seeds-set-to-make-a-comeback
[5] Herbicide resistant crops and increased use
http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/breeding_aims/146.herbicide_resistant_crops.html
[6] What Monsanto makes GMOs for
http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/monsanto-agricultural-seeds.aspx
[7] GMO Fuel
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519791/genetically-modified-bacteria-produce-50-percent-more-fuel/
[8] GMO vs family farms
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section002.groupv/small_farms_and_gmos
[9] GMO Medicine
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/897705/genetically-modified-organism-GMO/279978/GMOs-in-medicine-and-research
[10] GMO Paper vs deforestation
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/04/04/genetically-modified-trees-clean-paper-industry/#.U3v0jyhLpRU
[11] Mosanto sues farmers
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers-who-save-seeds.aspx

Article is written from past studying and memory, and many points are covered in various literature. I am attempting fill in some sources for additional reading to allow for easier studying by those reading it. However, bias should be noted as I wrote the article first, and then then looked for articles I remembered (or at least similar ones).