I asked that you pay me and the other HNers reading this enough respect that you avoid littering your responses with straw man arguments, and yet you provide on

I asked that you pay me and the other HNers reading this enough respect that you avoid littering your responses with straw man arguments, and yet you provide one that is bloated with them. What kind of useful discussion is possible when you're doing that? None, so I'll ignore them. > > because the farming of animals is so inefficient, > As non efficient as any other process that has been improved over the last 4000 years at least. This is wrong, for several reasons, the main one being the most pertinent - less calories are yielded per unit of farmland in animal farming than in non-animal farming. That is an objective difference in efficiency. You wrote “what California needs now is to plant more almonds that suck all the water”. From [1]: > Animal feed, which includes irrigated pasture, non-irrigated pasture, and other feed crops, has the greatest water requirements (15 MAF), followed by alfalfa, straw, and hay (5.5 MAF). Together, these crops provide the primary inputs to California’s meat and dairy industry. Over ten times the water use of almonds and the largest use of water in California farming by far. It takes 84 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of almond milk, and 880 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of cow's milk. That is an objective difference in efficiency. You wrote “In arid places there are less things more efficient than a camel or a goat.” Arguing from an exception isn't a winning strategy but it doesn't matter as I'm all for goats using mountain pasture. By all means, use camels in the desert instead of trying to grow wheat or whatever. Did I mention straw man arguments? Speaking of which, if you wish to amend the essay you've provided which reads as an argument to someone else, (as I'm not in favour of a vegan utopia - whatever that is) then I'll be able to respond to it. Otherwise, you'll only be wasting your own time from here on in. [1] https://pacinst.org/publication/assessment-of-californias-water-footprint/ https://pacinst.org/publication/assessment-of-californias-wa...