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> Trying to offer solutions that don't tackle the underlying problem make hard to guarantee long-term sustainability. Maybe, but solutions that go against huma

> Trying to offer solutions that don't tackle the underlying problem make hard to guarantee long-term sustainability. Maybe, but solutions that go against human nature are doomed to fail in the first place. Asceticism doesn't work. Asking people to do the right thing only has a tiny marginal effect. The only solution to get long-term sustainability is to offer people a better, greener, more sustainable alternative, that doesn't inconvenience people. To overcome the force of habit, your alternative has to be both better and cheaper if you want to see mass adoption. Otherwise you'll just get niche adoption, which is pretty much useless on the grand scale of things.

aylmao 6y ago
> Maybe, but solutions that go against human nature are doomed to fail in the first place. I disagree on two fundamental points. Firstly, current levels of meat consumption, I'd argue, are very much not "human nature". It's more to do with advertisement, and cultural trends which are artificial. Secondly, I'd argue "human nature" has been _modified_ or _overcome_ plenty of times before. In short-term thinking, yeah, finding a replacement is the straightforward solution. In the long term, the only certain and the most sustainable solution is to address the consumption problem.
runarberg 6y ago
Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature? AFAIK this level of meat eating is limited a minority population in a very short period of the history of our species. What you say might be true of the wolf nature—hence you shouldn’t feed your dog with vegetarian diet. But humans are not dogs, and only insular population of us living in harsh climates such as the arctic have historically eaten meat as our primary diet. And even then, plant based food is brought to these populations, people there very much consume it. If there is any human nature that rules our eating habits it is the fact that we are omnivores and eat what is available.
- nec4b 6y ago
  >Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature? All the nomadic tribes, people living in mountainous areas, hunter gatherer societies in temperate climates,... Though the question itself is pretty meaningless or misleading, since on average people today do not eat meat in almost every meal at all.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”. I doubt that hunter gatherers in temperate climate ate 100 kg of meat per year. This kind of meat consumption only existed were plant based diet wasn’t available at all. To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal.
    - nec4b 6y ago
      >Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”. Which is almost everywhere on the planet beside tropics and subtropics before agriculture came to existence. It was natural for humans to live on a predominantly meat diet for a lot longer than it became fashionable to live from plants only. >To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal. The population of the USA is only 4% of world population and Americans probably eat more than 2 two meals a day. So no, on average we do not eat meat almost every meal.
      - runarberg 6y ago
        Are you an expert in this field? I’m not so honestly you don’t have to know a lot to know more then me, but here are my guesses: a) You underestimate how forested the temperate regions were before humans started significantly altering them well after the agricultural revolution. b) You underestimate how well humans can gather and store non meat foods without agriculture. I bet an average group of humans knew where there were fruitful nut trees, know when they were ripe, know how to store the nuts, and know how to sprout and grow knew once in a favorable location. I bet roots have the same story. See you don’t need agriculture to grow things, and I bet humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. c) You underestimate how hard it is to hunt with stone and bone tools. Apart from fishing, game is mostly seasonal in the temperate regions, so there would always be seasons where meat was scarce. It takes a ton of effort and coordination to hunt a single animal, you are not always succesful, and when you are, then storing the meat becomes an issue. So your best bet is to share the meat with the whole group, and probably leave some for other scavengers. As I said, I’m not an expert, but realistically I don’t see how pre neolithic humans could have eaten even close to 100 kg a meat per year.

aylmao 6y ago

> Maybe, but solutions that go against human nature are doomed to fail in the first place. I disagree on two fundamental points. Firstly, current levels of meat consumption, I'd argue, are very much not "human nature". It's more to do with advertisement, and cultural trends which are artificial. Secondly, I'd argue "human nature" has been _modified_ or _overcome_ plenty of times before. In short-term thinking, yeah, finding a replacement is the straightforward solution. In the long term, the only certain and the most sustainable solution is to address the consumption problem.

runarberg 6y ago

Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature? AFAIK this level of meat eating is limited a minority population in a very short period of the history of our species. What you say might be true of the wolf nature—hence you shouldn’t feed your dog with vegetarian diet. But humans are not dogs, and only insular population of us living in harsh climates such as the arctic have historically eaten meat as our primary diet. And even then, plant based food is brought to these populations, people there very much consume it. If there is any human nature that rules our eating habits it is the fact that we are omnivores and eat what is available.

nec4b 6y ago
>Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature? All the nomadic tribes, people living in mountainous areas, hunter gatherer societies in temperate climates,... Though the question itself is pretty meaningless or misleading, since on average people today do not eat meat in almost every meal at all.
- runarberg 6y ago
  Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”. I doubt that hunter gatherers in temperate climate ate 100 kg of meat per year. This kind of meat consumption only existed were plant based diet wasn’t available at all. To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal.
  - nec4b 6y ago
    >Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”. Which is almost everywhere on the planet beside tropics and subtropics before agriculture came to existence. It was natural for humans to live on a predominantly meat diet for a lot longer than it became fashionable to live from plants only. >To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal. The population of the USA is only 4% of world population and Americans probably eat more than 2 two meals a day. So no, on average we do not eat meat almost every meal.
    - runarberg 6y ago
      Are you an expert in this field? I’m not so honestly you don’t have to know a lot to know more then me, but here are my guesses: a) You underestimate how forested the temperate regions were before humans started significantly altering them well after the agricultural revolution. b) You underestimate how well humans can gather and store non meat foods without agriculture. I bet an average group of humans knew where there were fruitful nut trees, know when they were ripe, know how to store the nuts, and know how to sprout and grow knew once in a favorable location. I bet roots have the same story. See you don’t need agriculture to grow things, and I bet humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. c) You underestimate how hard it is to hunt with stone and bone tools. Apart from fishing, game is mostly seasonal in the temperate regions, so there would always be seasons where meat was scarce. It takes a ton of effort and coordination to hunt a single animal, you are not always succesful, and when you are, then storing the meat becomes an issue. So your best bet is to share the meat with the whole group, and probably leave some for other scavengers. As I said, I’m not an expert, but realistically I don’t see how pre neolithic humans could have eaten even close to 100 kg a meat per year.