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The is a cultural-blind statement that tries to lift "cultural relativism" to "objective normality". It's incorrect, without appropriate qualification. Let me h

The is a cultural-blind statement that tries to lift "cultural relativism" to "objective normality". It's incorrect, without appropriate qualification. Let me help you: It's almost as if some people are trying to push the false narrative that eating bugs is perfectly normal for people in the corner of Florida where I grew up. When stated like that, it doesn't make that much sense. No one would think it was normal in a place where it's not normal to do so, so probably no one is pushing that. But I think you're right that there is some form of "food source environmental activism" related to bug-eating, but this article isn't about that, and doesn't have to be. I mean, take from it what you will, and I understand the triggered reactions to the connotations of "let's replace our menu with insect meat because environment", but I think that's an unnecessary fear-connotation in this case and is not warranted by the source material.

indy 4y ago
Whenever I see these kinds of articles posted on Hacker News I'm always reminded of Paul Graham's excellent article The Submarine (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
- graderjs 4y ago
  "These sorts" I guess you mean "insect eating" articles, which, hahaha, I have to say I rarely see, but OK (maybe that's my own sort of...not cultural blindness--we're from the same culture probably--but media-diet blindness? I just don't see a lot of those articles). So you are suggesting these are the work of PR firms. I mean, maybe... like a corporate PR strategy to slowly normalize the eating of insects? Like I get the "insect meat enviro activism" angle, but I think it's possible to see this article as something that exists without that, independently of that. I mean, it is kind of a culture-blind doubling-down to be so blind to the fact that other people (real people, not stock images in advertising campaigns) eat insects around the world...that you see any emanation of stories about these as part of a concerted PR strategy. Because maybe that fits your cultural-bias that "this stuff doesn't really happen so if we see it it has to be a corporate profit motive", right? I mean, why can't it just be a story about another culture and what they do? Why need to get all judgey and like "from only your perspective thou shalt speak the truth" about it? Personally I don't get the strong "immune" reactions I see here. Is it a sublimated expression of the visceral (but probably culturally relative) revulsion? Or like where is this coming from for you? Like why can't it just be a story, why does it have to be propaganda for something? I'm curious. Please relate what's there for you, if you want! :P ;) xx ;p
  - brigandish 4y ago
    I'm not sure it has to be propaganda but I'd say it's probably a good thing if people at least consider if what the media serves up is propaganda, because there's a reasonable possibility it is.
    - graderjs 4y ago
      Oh, I totally agree. But I guess I was thinking that some little out of the way food-focused bloggie by some local traveling lass was maybe slightly less likely to be a propos psy-op than the trash served up constantly by the lamestream media. Hey, but that's just my take! :P ;) xx ;p I also didn't know the "insects for food" lobby was such a powerhouse as the view you invoked seems to suggest? Care to elaborate? I'm all ears, literally want to learn about this.
      - brigandish 4y ago
        I don't pay much attention to the insects for food thing because I'm a vegetarian, but I do see the stories in the media - old media, big media, and bloggers - and it does seem to be on the increase. I saw Bill Gates in a video[1] just yesterday talking about how the rich nations should be eating synthetic meat, and of course the World Economic Forum are planning (apparently) to move everyone over to insects, while they dress like cartoon villains. Do a quick search for "eat insects" on the BBC site, for example (the biggest news site in the UK) and you'll see they do regular stories with positive headlines like Eating insects: Should we be eating more? Why are they so good? (June this year), or the more insidious Why you may have been eating insects your whole life (April 2018). Seriously, do a search on some major media sites and it comes up again and again and again, especially left leaning media. In right leaning, it's obviously anti that. As I say, I've not got a dog in this fight (if anything, I'm pro synthetic meat) but if you roll the "insects for food" lobby into the "climate change" lobby, and possibly the "oligarchy keeping the rest of us paupers" lobby and perhaps you'll think it has some power or perhaps it will cement for you that it's a silly conspiracy theory. Or it could simply be an overreaction to these stories, lots of people get emotional about food, it's part of identity, preference, and health, so a threat to it will provoke a reaction. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gates-climate-change-beef-trees-microsoft/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gat... Not the video, that was an Instagram story so it's gone but this is an interview with Gates about it
somenameforme 4y ago
The interesting thing is I've had the experience of getting to live in a number of the places framed in the Western media as ones where bugs are commonly eaten (in Asia in particular). And it's been, at best, misleading. They're only eaten at all frequently in the more rural and extremely impoverished (which is to say extremely impoverished relative to an impoverished average) areas. Across multiple countries the people that do this have been referred to as "hill tribe people." And even there, it's not exactly as framed. When they are eaten they tend to be cooked in a way to try to remove all flavor (such as heavy frying) and then served with copious amounts of a flavored side (and often alcohol as well). In the less impoverished areas, what bugs are sold are often ironically targeted at foreigners thinking they're engaging in an exotic cultural experience, even though few locals would care to share that 'culture' themselves!
- nicolas_t 4y ago
  I'd say that part of this is the influence of globalisation that makes certain things that used to be acceptable no longer acceptable. You can see this with a lot of regional delicacies. For example, my grandfather from Normandy used to eat camembert only after it developped maggots, no one I know nowadays does that, nor can I find any reference of people doing this online. People in Caen used to eat Pork lung (mou de porc), it's now very hard to find anywhere. It's also the same in Central Mexico with the popularity of eating Escamoles diminishing (but that's also partly due to the price since it's not a cheap ingredient) but it's still not particularly difficult to find restaurants serving it and it's not only for tourists. There's a lot of examples like this of regional food that have fallen out of favour. From what I've learned when talking to friends in Thailand, it's the same with insects, it's a rural food (but not from hill tribe people or minorities just from less urbanised parts of Thailand), that's fallen out of favour with the upper middle class. That doesn't mean that only foreigners eat it, there are plenty of locals who eat it, it's just less common than it once was and is becoming less and less common. In the case of grasshopper and cricket, you're right it's fried and food that goes well with alcohol but that doesn't mean that there's not taste or that it doesn't taste good. Crickets definitely have a very distinctive flavour and one that fits well with drinks in the same way that chips can be nice with apéritifs.
- 4y ago

indy 4y ago

Whenever I see these kinds of articles posted on Hacker News I'm always reminded of Paul Graham's excellent article The Submarine (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

graderjs 4y ago
"These sorts" I guess you mean "insect eating" articles, which, hahaha, I have to say I rarely see, but OK (maybe that's my own sort of...not cultural blindness--we're from the same culture probably--but media-diet blindness? I just don't see a lot of those articles). So you are suggesting these are the work of PR firms. I mean, maybe... like a corporate PR strategy to slowly normalize the eating of insects? Like I get the "insect meat enviro activism" angle, but I think it's possible to see this article as something that exists without that, independently of that. I mean, it is kind of a culture-blind doubling-down to be so blind to the fact that other people (real people, not stock images in advertising campaigns) eat insects around the world...that you see any emanation of stories about these as part of a concerted PR strategy. Because maybe that fits your cultural-bias that "this stuff doesn't really happen so if we see it it has to be a corporate profit motive", right? I mean, why can't it just be a story about another culture and what they do? Why need to get all judgey and like "from only your perspective thou shalt speak the truth" about it? Personally I don't get the strong "immune" reactions I see here. Is it a sublimated expression of the visceral (but probably culturally relative) revulsion? Or like where is this coming from for you? Like why can't it just be a story, why does it have to be propaganda for something? I'm curious. Please relate what's there for you, if you want! :P ;) xx ;p
- brigandish 4y ago
  I'm not sure it has to be propaganda but I'd say it's probably a good thing if people at least consider if what the media serves up is propaganda, because there's a reasonable possibility it is.
  - graderjs 4y ago
    Oh, I totally agree. But I guess I was thinking that some little out of the way food-focused bloggie by some local traveling lass was maybe slightly less likely to be a propos psy-op than the trash served up constantly by the lamestream media. Hey, but that's just my take! :P ;) xx ;p I also didn't know the "insects for food" lobby was such a powerhouse as the view you invoked seems to suggest? Care to elaborate? I'm all ears, literally want to learn about this.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      I don't pay much attention to the insects for food thing because I'm a vegetarian, but I do see the stories in the media - old media, big media, and bloggers - and it does seem to be on the increase. I saw Bill Gates in a video[1] just yesterday talking about how the rich nations should be eating synthetic meat, and of course the World Economic Forum are planning (apparently) to move everyone over to insects, while they dress like cartoon villains. Do a quick search for "eat insects" on the BBC site, for example (the biggest news site in the UK) and you'll see they do regular stories with positive headlines like Eating insects: Should we be eating more? Why are they so good? (June this year), or the more insidious Why you may have been eating insects your whole life (April 2018). Seriously, do a search on some major media sites and it comes up again and again and again, especially left leaning media. In right leaning, it's obviously anti that. As I say, I've not got a dog in this fight (if anything, I'm pro synthetic meat) but if you roll the "insects for food" lobby into the "climate change" lobby, and possibly the "oligarchy keeping the rest of us paupers" lobby and perhaps you'll think it has some power or perhaps it will cement for you that it's a silly conspiracy theory. Or it could simply be an overreaction to these stories, lots of people get emotional about food, it's part of identity, preference, and health, so a threat to it will provoke a reaction. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gates-climate-change-beef-trees-microsoft/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gat... Not the video, that was an Instagram story so it's gone but this is an interview with Gates about it

somenameforme 4y ago

The interesting thing is I've had the experience of getting to live in a number of the places framed in the Western media as ones where bugs are commonly eaten (in Asia in particular). And it's been, at best, misleading. They're only eaten at all frequently in the more rural and extremely impoverished (which is to say extremely impoverished relative to an impoverished average) areas. Across multiple countries the people that do this have been referred to as "hill tribe people." And even there, it's not exactly as framed. When they are eaten they tend to be cooked in a way to try to remove all flavor (such as heavy frying) and then served with copious amounts of a flavored side (and often alcohol as well). In the less impoverished areas, what bugs are sold are often ironically targeted at foreigners thinking they're engaging in an exotic cultural experience, even though few locals would care to share that 'culture' themselves!

nicolas_t 4y ago
I'd say that part of this is the influence of globalisation that makes certain things that used to be acceptable no longer acceptable. You can see this with a lot of regional delicacies. For example, my grandfather from Normandy used to eat camembert only after it developped maggots, no one I know nowadays does that, nor can I find any reference of people doing this online. People in Caen used to eat Pork lung (mou de porc), it's now very hard to find anywhere. It's also the same in Central Mexico with the popularity of eating Escamoles diminishing (but that's also partly due to the price since it's not a cheap ingredient) but it's still not particularly difficult to find restaurants serving it and it's not only for tourists. There's a lot of examples like this of regional food that have fallen out of favour. From what I've learned when talking to friends in Thailand, it's the same with insects, it's a rural food (but not from hill tribe people or minorities just from less urbanised parts of Thailand), that's fallen out of favour with the upper middle class. That doesn't mean that only foreigners eat it, there are plenty of locals who eat it, it's just less common than it once was and is becoming less and less common. In the case of grasshopper and cricket, you're right it's fried and food that goes well with alcohol but that doesn't mean that there's not taste or that it doesn't taste good. Crickets definitely have a very distinctive flavour and one that fits well with drinks in the same way that chips can be nice with apéritifs.
4y ago