4 ms·

a bit different lol

ceejayoz 2y ago
How so? Americans eat various mammals, birds, etc., including ones they hunt themselves. We have plenty of opportunities of our own to contract zoonotic diseases. What makes a bat weirder than, say, a duck?
- genewitch 2y ago
  November 2019 - present, I would argue. I understand there's avian flu, too. Also: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/chinese-researchers-find-bat-virus-enters-human-cells-via-same-pathway-covid-2025-02-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... I'm only finding vague statements that ducks are a vector anywhere near as impactful as bats. Ducks are filter feeders as well as scavengers and as such bats eat more "vectors" than ducks, in my estimation.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    The point is not "ducks are a specific risk"; the point is "Americans eat plenty of what we'd call 'bushmeat' in the Congo". There's nothing particularly odd about kids having a meal of grilled bat - it's just the local version of something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew. Chicken and pig farms are likely the biggest zoonotic threats here.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      lemme preface by saying i'm not intending to directly argue with you or even particularly address your points. I'm in a flow state right now and i am avoiding physical labor... I don't eat much pork, i've had that (squirrel) stew - not a fan, and i raise fowl. Guinea, duck, turkey, chickens so far. Heck, i even raised a pig to slaughter, not something i intend to do again, either. I originally was going to speak to "you eats what you gotta" but it's kinda irrelevant. The arguments for vegetarian and veganism fall on deaf ears, here. I've done the reading and lectures and studies. I've also had to give a goat of mine vitamin B injections because it was stargazing. Vitamin B is something that's in meat in abundance. Goats don't eat much meat - they will, but they're ruminants. So a vitamin B deficiency in a goat eating it's fill of subtropical rainforest cuisine... it was a nanny, so it is possible there was a slight nutrient imbalance, i guess. The route to having chicken and pig farms be less zoonotic threats "just because" is liable to just famine billions. not everyone can eat chitin. edit: bacon and sausage are alright. my friend planted a mind-virus in my head 20 years ago that pigs can play video games and around the same time our mutual friend gave me wild hog to eat. I'll probably stop consuming pork altogether sometime in the next year or two. Wife can't eat red meat, so i already don't around her anyhow.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        I think we're generally in agreement here, yeah. > The route to having chicken and pig farms be less zoonotic threats "just because" is liable to just famine billions. Absolutely. My main objection here is to the folks going "lol bats eww what idiots" sort of tone when we're doing the same thing here, on an industrial scale, with likely similar consequences. The folks in Congo are just trying to get enough to eat, and some of that means hunting, just as it often does in American rural areas.

a bit different lol

How so? Americans eat various mammals, birds, etc., including ones they hunt themselves. We have plenty of opportunities of our own to contract zoonotic diseases. What makes a bat weirder than, say, a duck?

genewitch 2y ago
November 2019 - present, I would argue. I understand there's avian flu, too. Also: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/chinese-researchers-find-bat-virus-enters-human-cells-via-same-pathway-covid-2025-02-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... I'm only finding vague statements that ducks are a vector anywhere near as impactful as bats. Ducks are filter feeders as well as scavengers and as such bats eat more "vectors" than ducks, in my estimation.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  The point is not "ducks are a specific risk"; the point is "Americans eat plenty of what we'd call 'bushmeat' in the Congo". There's nothing particularly odd about kids having a meal of grilled bat - it's just the local version of something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew. Chicken and pig farms are likely the biggest zoonotic threats here.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    lemme preface by saying i'm not intending to directly argue with you or even particularly address your points. I'm in a flow state right now and i am avoiding physical labor... I don't eat much pork, i've had that (squirrel) stew - not a fan, and i raise fowl. Guinea, duck, turkey, chickens so far. Heck, i even raised a pig to slaughter, not something i intend to do again, either. I originally was going to speak to "you eats what you gotta" but it's kinda irrelevant. The arguments for vegetarian and veganism fall on deaf ears, here. I've done the reading and lectures and studies. I've also had to give a goat of mine vitamin B injections because it was stargazing. Vitamin B is something that's in meat in abundance. Goats don't eat much meat - they will, but they're ruminants. So a vitamin B deficiency in a goat eating it's fill of subtropical rainforest cuisine... it was a nanny, so it is possible there was a slight nutrient imbalance, i guess. The route to having chicken and pig farms be less zoonotic threats "just because" is liable to just famine billions. not everyone can eat chitin. edit: bacon and sausage are alright. my friend planted a mind-virus in my head 20 years ago that pigs can play video games and around the same time our mutual friend gave me wild hog to eat. I'll probably stop consuming pork altogether sometime in the next year or two. Wife can't eat red meat, so i already don't around her anyhow.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      I think we're generally in agreement here, yeah. > The route to having chicken and pig farms be less zoonotic threats "just because" is liable to just famine billions. Absolutely. My main objection here is to the folks going "lol bats eww what idiots" sort of tone when we're doing the same thing here, on an industrial scale, with likely similar consequences. The folks in Congo are just trying to get enough to eat, and some of that means hunting, just as it often does in American rural areas.