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Why would we do that when are bodies are specifically evolved for eating both vegetables and meat? I, for one at least, consider along the millions of years th

• majewsky 9y ago
  Quoting from the collective wisdom of HN here: Because it doesn't scale.
  • rdiddly 9y ago
    Oh crap, you summed up my long-ass comment in 4 words! "I've been disrupted by a leaner competitor!"
• vintageseltzer 9y ago
  I don't think they're saying we should stop eating all meat — just that it should be significantly reduced. That's pretty much a no-brainer for our health, for the environment and to reduce the suffering of millions of animals at the hands of the industrial livestock industry. Personally, I used to eat meat multiple times a day, and now I only eat it once or twice a week. It has really improved my life. I think everyone should try it.
• n4r9 9y ago
  This is the classic "appeal to nature" fallacy. On top of that, we don't know much about the diet of ancient humans, including how often they actually got to eat meat. Natural selection isn't wise, it's just an uncaring response to the environment. The environment has changed dramatically.
  • tertius 9y ago
    It's not wise no, but it puts us where we are. Generic engineering is all the tool that we have to fight ur and we're not so good at that.
• objclxt 9y ago
  > Why would we do that when are bodies are specifically evolved for eating both vegetables and meat? Our bodies specifically evolved for reproduction, but that doesn't stop us from using contraception when we have sex. Evolution also designed us to have wisdom teeth, but that doesn't stop people removing them. Your argument assumes that natural selection has some kind of innate "wisdom", and that's just not true. Natural selection doesn't produce perfection or have any kind of intelligence behind it, it simply produces "good enough" (or, as we're on HN, the minimum viable product).
  • tertius 9y ago
    It's where we are now though. We're adapted to it.
• rdiddly 9y ago
  Because the wisdom of that selection isn't so wise, now that there are almost 8 billion of us. Natural selection is dictated by conditions; conditions change. There is nothing permanent about it. And existing population of the target species (humans in this case) is itself one of the conditions. Also it's probably a mistake to attribute something like wisdom to what is essentially a statistical crap-shoot. The great temptation of religion is of course the idea that there is an Intelligence at work. But just to pick a silly example, does the dodo bird or the passenger pigeon think it was "wise" and "intelligent" for the forces of nature to select for meat-eating humans? Dodo philosophers and theologians in the last days - did they question why God would unleash such a fury on them? Anyway I can tell you human ones will. Natural selection will most likely start killing off humans as soon as our technology can't keep up with all our baby-birthin'. It will manifest in forms you're already seeing in today's headlines. Voluntarily consuming less is an attempt to deal with it before the wisdom of natural selection deals with it.
• state_less 9y ago
  Because it’s killing the planet? We also evolved a brain so we could adapt. Hopefully we’ll use it.