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Have you considered why we do this? How would our society be different if only well-to-do people could eat meat regularly? Would a regular guy be content with w

Have you considered why we do this? How would our society be different if only well-to-do people could eat meat regularly? Would a regular guy be content with wealthy people eating steaks while jet-setting around the globe because of climate change? I think a populist uprising would occur almost immediately and we’d see heads on pikes with their decapitated mouths stuffed with cabbage for all to see. It would be super easy for a party to take advantage of this and they would. In short, it would be a miserable time.

danShumway 6y ago
> That's not necessarily bad, but if we're going to be messing with the market anyway we could choose to subsidize other things. I'm saying we shouldn't pretend that meat is as cheap as it is on its own. We should acknowledge what the reality is: meat is cheap because as a society, we choose to use tax dollars to make it cheap. We could do the exact same thing with plant-based meat. We could shift some of those subsidies so that meat and plant protein were equally subsidized. We could balance them out. We can talk about the logistics. But I think sometimes the conversation gets stuck entirely on "how could we make artificial meat cheaper" when the reality is that animal meat is expensive, and the big difference between animal meat and plant meat is that we pretend that animal meat costs less than a free market would otherwise dictate. Of course I want to artificial meat to be cheaper, but I'm also not going to pretend that it's a fair fight. The reason why this matters is because I do see arguments from people that say that it's just too expensive to have a social shift towards vegetarianism, and it can't possibly scale, and it's government interference to try and prop up plant-based foods. And yeah, we can have a values conversation about whether society wants us to make meat cheap. But most of the rest of those objections are crap. There are a lot of people that do think that meat is actually priced realistically based on what it costs to produce. They don't realize that it's just that our government chooses to make very specific farming outputs cheaper.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I just think it’s politically a non-starter. They tried to tax sugary drinks in the most liberal city in America and heads exploded.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    >I just think it’s politically a non-starter. That's a separate issue to whether we should value a free market. Or is it? If we're only going to support a "free market" in spots where it's politically convenient, but be enthusiastic about stripping any regulations that are politically viable, then what we'll see is a systemic stripping of regulations that protect people without power, without touching regulations of people with power. This ends in disaster.
zionic 6y ago
The rich: steak is only for us now, for the climate and stuff The poor: Time to eat the rich
markdown 6y ago
This is nonsense. People elsewhere in the world pay 50% to 100% more than what Americans pay for beef. Removing some subsidies and making beef slightly more expensive would save money and people would just eat beef one day less/week.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Aerroon 6y ago
  And they'll replace their meat with what? More sugar? Bread? Sugary bread? I think you underestimate how big of a deal food is to people. I believe that any change will be towards food that's even worse for people.
  - dnhz 6y ago
    Hopefully with less food in this theoretical scenario because most people are overweight.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    Why would people replace meat with sugar?
    - thejynxed 6y ago
      Because of how much of it is added into every alternative meat replacement product, and it's a shockingly high amount if you read the labels on some "organic" and "plant-based" products.
      - jamil7 6y ago
        I have a few issues with this. As far as I know health concerns related to meat replacements aren't to do with sugar levels, probably more likely with saturated fat and sodium (which exists in regular meat too). Also I don't know why you bothered to put organic in there as well since the we're talking about meat replacement. Finally I think you're making the assumption that if we don't eat meat we need meat replacements at all.
bigfudge 6y ago
If meat is the trigger to generate real social change then great! I don’t want to see heads on spikes, but if people are genuinely bought off by cheap meat that’s kind of sad.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I’m not sure it’s the type of social change you’re anticipating. I think the fact everyone has access to the food they want and is part of their culture is a major reason we generally have a peaceful and free society. I can only imagine the resent from the middle and lower classes when “the elites” eat steaks on airplanes and they, the plebs they are, are forced to subside on processed alternatives while being forced to become a proselyte to a cause that those that can afford to ignore do.
adrianN 6y ago
The average US citizen eats around 100kg of meat per year. You could easily cut that in half and still eat meat every day.

danShumway 6y ago

> That's not necessarily bad, but if we're going to be messing with the market anyway we could choose to subsidize other things. I'm saying we shouldn't pretend that meat is as cheap as it is on its own. We should acknowledge what the reality is: meat is cheap because as a society, we choose to use tax dollars to make it cheap. We could do the exact same thing with plant-based meat. We could shift some of those subsidies so that meat and plant protein were equally subsidized. We could balance them out. We can talk about the logistics. But I think sometimes the conversation gets stuck entirely on "how could we make artificial meat cheaper" when the reality is that animal meat is expensive, and the big difference between animal meat and plant meat is that we pretend that animal meat costs less than a free market would otherwise dictate. Of course I want to artificial meat to be cheaper, but I'm also not going to pretend that it's a fair fight. The reason why this matters is because I do see arguments from people that say that it's just too expensive to have a social shift towards vegetarianism, and it can't possibly scale, and it's government interference to try and prop up plant-based foods. And yeah, we can have a values conversation about whether society wants us to make meat cheap. But most of the rest of those objections are crap. There are a lot of people that do think that meat is actually priced realistically based on what it costs to produce. They don't realize that it's just that our government chooses to make very specific farming outputs cheaper.

nemo44x 6y ago
I just think it’s politically a non-starter. They tried to tax sugary drinks in the most liberal city in America and heads exploded.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >I just think it’s politically a non-starter. That's a separate issue to whether we should value a free market. Or is it? If we're only going to support a "free market" in spots where it's politically convenient, but be enthusiastic about stripping any regulations that are politically viable, then what we'll see is a systemic stripping of regulations that protect people without power, without touching regulations of people with power. This ends in disaster.

zionic 6y ago

The rich: steak is only for us now, for the climate and stuff The poor: Time to eat the rich

markdown 6y ago

This is nonsense. People elsewhere in the world pay 50% to 100% more than what Americans pay for beef. Removing some subsidies and making beef slightly more expensive would save money and people would just eat beef one day less/week.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Aerroon 6y ago
And they'll replace their meat with what? More sugar? Bread? Sugary bread? I think you underestimate how big of a deal food is to people. I believe that any change will be towards food that's even worse for people.
- dnhz 6y ago
  Hopefully with less food in this theoretical scenario because most people are overweight.
- jamil7 6y ago
  Why would people replace meat with sugar?
  - thejynxed 6y ago
    Because of how much of it is added into every alternative meat replacement product, and it's a shockingly high amount if you read the labels on some "organic" and "plant-based" products.
    - jamil7 6y ago
      I have a few issues with this. As far as I know health concerns related to meat replacements aren't to do with sugar levels, probably more likely with saturated fat and sodium (which exists in regular meat too). Also I don't know why you bothered to put organic in there as well since the we're talking about meat replacement. Finally I think you're making the assumption that if we don't eat meat we need meat replacements at all.

bigfudge 6y ago

If meat is the trigger to generate real social change then great! I don’t want to see heads on spikes, but if people are genuinely bought off by cheap meat that’s kind of sad.

nemo44x 6y ago
I’m not sure it’s the type of social change you’re anticipating. I think the fact everyone has access to the food they want and is part of their culture is a major reason we generally have a peaceful and free society. I can only imagine the resent from the middle and lower classes when “the elites” eat steaks on airplanes and they, the plebs they are, are forced to subside on processed alternatives while being forced to become a proselyte to a cause that those that can afford to ignore do.

adrianN 6y ago

The average US citizen eats around 100kg of meat per year. You could easily cut that in half and still eat meat every day.