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Good, I hope this encourages people to support plant based alternatives and "vat meat" type stuff. The meat industry is awful for two major disaster scenarios f

Good, I hope this encourages people to support plant based alternatives and "vat meat" type stuff. The meat industry is awful for two major disaster scenarios facing humanity: global warming and antibiotic resistance. Meat isn't "critical infrastructure", it's a luxury with health risks akin to other luxury products that are taxed, and is propped up and subsidized already in order to survive. This is not even beginning to talk about the ethics of this situation. People like Noam Chomsky etc have been behind this: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/12/features/noam-chomsky-couple-generations-organized-human-society-may-not-survive-has-be https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/12/features/noam-ch... No one would be particularly choked up if this affected the cigarette industry or the alcohol industry.

hourislate 5y ago
Yeah, we should also take a stand against all the plants and fruits we are farming. It is incredibly bad for the environment (ex: pesticides, water usage,slave labor practices, etc). The whole food sector is a major producer of Green house gasses and farming whether livestock or grains, etc is extremely bad for the environment. Lets save the planet and stop eatin.
- cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
  I mean, I'm all for humanity dying out at some point, but this is a question of harm reduction...I don't really understand the logic in "But ALL food production has some net impact, checkmate!" By virtue of living we are endlessly consuming. The answer to that isn't to jump off a cliff or restrict ourselves to the point where we can barely function within current society. We have to eat, and we have to work within the supply chain system we have now. We can campaign long term for fair trade/accountable supply chains and that's probably never going to be perfect. But if you have an option that involves by definition the unethical slaughter and treatment of billions of animals that has diminishing returns as far as calories/nutrients go (you can feed soybeans to cows, and eat that one cow, or feed soybeans directly to people) the choice seems very simple. People often take pride in recycling or doing other carbon footprint cutting measures like driving a prius, switching off the lights, and so forth. But I could drive a Hummer every day to work and have less of a carbon footprint if I don't eat animal products. It may not be reasonable for everyone to cut meat out of their diet due to food desserts, society, and so forth at this point, but that doesn't mean that it makes any sense from an environmental, ethical, or health perspective to keep factory farming. There is no question that it should be on its way out - if you believe in anyway that coal/oil should be phased out, look at the data on what factory farming contributes to global warming and tell me there's any justification for that not to be phased out as well. I can be against factory farming and also against human trafficking and sweat shops. Both are bad. It's not a good argument to say that since there's exploitation in the food chain regardless, it doesn't matter. It's a question of harm reduction.

hourislate 5y ago

Yeah, we should also take a stand against all the plants and fruits we are farming. It is incredibly bad for the environment (ex: pesticides, water usage,slave labor practices, etc). The whole food sector is a major producer of Green house gasses and farming whether livestock or grains, etc is extremely bad for the environment. Lets save the planet and stop eatin.

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
I mean, I'm all for humanity dying out at some point, but this is a question of harm reduction...I don't really understand the logic in "But ALL food production has some net impact, checkmate!" By virtue of living we are endlessly consuming. The answer to that isn't to jump off a cliff or restrict ourselves to the point where we can barely function within current society. We have to eat, and we have to work within the supply chain system we have now. We can campaign long term for fair trade/accountable supply chains and that's probably never going to be perfect. But if you have an option that involves by definition the unethical slaughter and treatment of billions of animals that has diminishing returns as far as calories/nutrients go (you can feed soybeans to cows, and eat that one cow, or feed soybeans directly to people) the choice seems very simple. People often take pride in recycling or doing other carbon footprint cutting measures like driving a prius, switching off the lights, and so forth. But I could drive a Hummer every day to work and have less of a carbon footprint if I don't eat animal products. It may not be reasonable for everyone to cut meat out of their diet due to food desserts, society, and so forth at this point, but that doesn't mean that it makes any sense from an environmental, ethical, or health perspective to keep factory farming. There is no question that it should be on its way out - if you believe in anyway that coal/oil should be phased out, look at the data on what factory farming contributes to global warming and tell me there's any justification for that not to be phased out as well. I can be against factory farming and also against human trafficking and sweat shops. Both are bad. It's not a good argument to say that since there's exploitation in the food chain regardless, it doesn't matter. It's a question of harm reduction.