Burrito of Peace wrote on Nov 27, 2022, 02:00:
...

The bill was due 30 years ago... we're now at stage where we are trying to minimise how bad the inevitable damage will be.

Here what the IPCC recommends: https://youtu.be/vxWNWxgMyyQ

A plant based diet is large part of the solution, the numbers have been crunched just look at the IPCC's website, all the data you could ever want. Not only is it easily possible, but necessary.

Is at the stage where people are literally eating away their children's future.

If you want to be a Burrito of Peace, fill it beans not beef, bit of smoked salt and good spices and it tastes just fine :-)

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 2022, 17:12.

Nice try Schkorpio, but you shouldn't bother at this point, the symptoms of cognitive dissonance are obvious when you look at the defensive emotional reactions/mechanisms and the digging in of heels despite overwhelming new available scientific evidence. Can't save everyone from themselves. He'll either get around to it himself in due time, or not. It's up to him now. You can only tacitly wish him well.

Once cognitive dissonance has kicked in in any conversation, it's too late, any further attempts at convincing will only push someone further into hardening their mechanisms to defend the ego and its emotionally linked positions, leading to further entrenchment.

It's also a nice example of why I enacted my new comment policy a while back on the internet. 1 reply, if cognitive dissonance pops up, I just forget about it. It's better for me, it's better for them, it's also better for the overall advancement of a cause by minimizing the related reflexive pushback and defensive entrenching.

I suggest you do yourself and everyone else a favor and try it.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 2022, 12:14.

Haven’t eaten meat in... three years now? Somehow I’m still alive!


And the best thing on our thanksgiving table was a vegan pesto pizza with roasted chickpeas and “cheese” from an almond purée. I thought it would be gross but it was surprisingly good. The crust was a mixture of mashed yam and oat flour.

Best and most informative BoP post ever.

And slightly adjacent to this topic, the events of Soylent Green occurred in 2022. And remember, Soylent Green is people.

I hope you enjoyed taking the time to write that, BoP.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
The issue here is that I'm raising a moral question, and you're answering with environmental concerns. Which is a bit like if the police arrest a drink driver, and someone says "yeah, but the cop's vehicle is still producing CO2"

Not really. What you're "raising" is the same, tired navel gazing that has been "raised" previously for a very long time that disregards that agriculture, of all types, interlinks with human existence, survival, evolution, history, culture, society, and diet. That's, at best, naive but I have found that is mostly willful disingenuousness.to stroke one's ego about their particular choices.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
1) The implication there is that if we raise any being for any purpose that suits us, we can do whatever we want to them... that's a dangerous concept.

A concept humanity has had mastered for, oh, about 15,000 years now. Literally. Also, depending on one's definition of "sentience", that also includes plants. Clearly not that "dangerous" since we've been stuffing our face with proteins, grains, fruits, and roots for the entirety of human existence.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
So let's take that farming business, and let's say it's now raising dogs for food. Non vegan dog lovers would want your blood, if the comments in animal abuse posts on social media are anything to go by.

Never heard of kagogi, I take it? Plenty of cultures ate dogs. Some still do and they raise dogs for just that purpose. I don't think they really give a shit about what someone on social media thinks about their culinary choices.When you're not wealthy enough to be concerned about first world problems, you really only care about the survival of yourself and your family. In that scenario. Outside of the taboo of noshing on your neighbors, protein is protein and it makes sure that little Billy isn't found blue and cold the next morning from starvation.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
So the question is why do we not only accept violence to a few animals, but actively pay for it to happen? Like if we can make a dog taste good (by all accounts they do) it becomes OK to slit their throats?

I mean this as politely as possible, but man do you live a sheltered life if you think only "a few" animals are affected by paid "violence". I'm guessing you've never heard of paid bounties for coyotes, deer, javalinas, rattlesnakes, and alligators (just as handful of examples, there are more)? Also, back off on the sensationalism. No one in their right mind is going to "slit their throats". Slitting throats causes the release of cortisol and adrenaline which absolutely ruin meat. As mentioned previously, in ranching, a bolt is used which is a near-instant kill.There's no suffering there so let's stop trying to play on emotions and deal with the actual facts.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
I don't see any meaningful difference, especially when you see it through the eyes of the animal - to the animal is always animal abuse, regardless of what our purposes are.

Because you choose not to based on a construct of assumptions, misinformation, and outright ignorance. Furthermore, your anthromorphizing and projecting human ideology on entire species. This is an irrational and illogical point to stand on.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
This is further compounded by the fact that we do not need to eat animals for nutrition.

We need protein and we need protein in a way that is easily obtainable by the poorest person. Can you get protein from other sources? Sure, if you're willing to spend twice or more on your food budget which is non-trivial to most humans. Raising cattle, pigs, chickens, fish, and the like is the most cost effective means to do so at this time. There are insect diets that purport to provide as much protein but the amount of ingestion needed to meet the same level of protein is very, very expensive. That doesn't include all the secondary and tertiary concerns that come along with insect raising.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
2) When it comes to crop production, something like 75% of it purely to feed farm animals. You need 18 calories of plants to get 1 calorie of meat.

Hey, we're playing the calorie counting game! That is totally a novel approach! Not. The problem with playing this game is that it normalizes calorie density which is utter bullshit and invalidates the baseline so no meaningful determinations can be be scientifically proven. But it sounds good as a talking point, so let's trot it out. The reality is that calorie density varies and varies wildly. The density necessary to obtain 1 calorie from fish is not at all equal to the density necessary to gain 1 calorie from beef. Then you have to also figure nutrition in to the equation because 1 calorie from, say, corn is not equal to the same nutritional value as 1 calorie from pork. Then there is the assumption that 100% of all livestock (which includes aquatic livestock) is fed 100% grown foodstuffs. That in itself is demonstrably and provably false. Let's take the cattle I have raised, for example. Earlier up thread I said they were grass fed. They grazed on wildly growing, naturally occurring grass. Zero effort or energy went in to producing "feed" for those cattle. Fun fact, even the hay they were fed in the winter comes from....the same grass that grew in the fall, early winter (if it is a warm year), and spring! My family's cattle raising wasn't a unicorn. Many ranchers raise cattle this way if they are able because it keeps operational costs down.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
We'd likely not need such intensive crop production in a plant based world.

And here I can tell you have never grown a large garden to feed yourself and break your dependency on JIT supply chains that break or short at a slight breeze. The amount of crop production you need (which includes varigated foodstuffs, spices, herbs, and so forth) is massive in its resource intensity per person. The reason being is because you're not growing 24/7/365 on the same plots. You literally cannot without resorting to methods that will utterly destroy both the microbiotic and macrobiotic ecosystems you need to maintain for healthy soil in the long term. This has knock-on effects of needing additional production chains to maintain the balance of that healthy soil. You're also going to be rotating out and letting some plots lie fallow. Those become completely unproductive and therefore must be taken off the positive side of the equation. However, they're still on the negative side of the equation because they still require labor and resources until they are once again able to be productive. If you tried to feed 8 billion people with 100% plants that were grown in a way that did not destroy the earth and render it literally sterile for hundreds of years to come, you'd need to take over a continent to meet their needs. This is assuming that continent is 100% arable land, has perfect weather, and natural disasters don't exist. This also assumes that you aren't using phosphates and glysophates which will impact water quality, life expectancy, human health, animal health, insect health, wildlife populations, soil quality, microbologic health and diversity, and completely ruin the ecosystem those plants are grown in since most foodstuff plants are by their nature invasive.

Are we next going to trot out the "We'll just use vertical farms that are all solar powered and hydroponic" claim that always comes next when you point out the problems with biodiversity and soil management in trying to transition every single person out of 8 billion to an entirely herbivorous existence? Because that's a non-starter, too, for many, many economical and ecological reasons.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
It takes way more crops to feed 80 billion farm animals than it does to feed 7 billion humans.

No, it really doesn't for the reasons I outlined above. And those reasons are based on a small scale farm. Scale them up to industrial levels of growth and those problems exponentially increase.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
So you need not worry about what vegans eat...

Never said I had a problem with what they eat, I said I had a problem with their blatant hypocrisy which you have done nothing to address or even acknowledge.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
That's why every major environmental and food-security think-tank recommends the world moving away from animal agriculture, and toward plant based diets.

No they don't. The ones that are trying to solve problems instead of sell stocks are seriously looking in to synthetics as a means to feed the 8 billion (and endlessly growing) people on this planet going forward because we're simply running out of room and production capability for both protein and vegetable foodstuffs. Growing and raising food is rapidly approach the point of being unsustainable. There's just not enough land to do it. Synthetics are humanity's only real shot at feeding itself in the future with our currently uncontrolled growth rate.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
People who farm like your family make up for only 1% of meat production. The rest is factory farmed, requiring most of the world's crops.

Not it isn't and no it doesn't. Stop trying to use StudyBarn as your point of reference. It's long been proven as unreliable. There are more dairy and cattle ranches in the US than the "factories" you're imagining that somehow pump out millions of pounds of protein and millions of gallons of dairy out of thin air. More to the point, do you even know what a "factory farm" is? Hint, they're still farms despite their size. Do you think they're producing these livestock out of thin air? There's a complex supply chain that goes in to the creation of any foodstuff a human being jams in to their gobhole to stop their belly from rumbling.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
The demand for animal foods is that high, and is an environmental disaster.

Protein demand has always been high since it's something the human body has biologically evolved to need as part of the continuation of its own existence. Good luck trying to rewire the lizard brain part of 8 billion people to be just as happy with dates as they are with steak, pork chops, and friend chicken.

An environmental disaster that is, say, different than the one you propose for going to an all 100% herbivorous diet that can only meet the demands of 8 billion people under perfect, utopian conditions that exist on no known planet?

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
So that leaves people with two choices, eat meat once a month so that animal farming can be minimised, or just eat a fully plant based diet, at least until cultured meat is widely available. Which should be any day now, as ours passed the FDA safety evaluation last week. It's a good solution, growing meat without the animal. None of the environmental or constant pandemic issues, and virtually none of the moral concerns.

Ah, and here we are. Simplifying a vast and complex problem down to an ill thought out, reductive, binary choice that blindly and intentionally ignores the thousands of other factors that need to be accounted for when talking about feeding a small population of 100 people let alone 8 billion people.

"Moral" here is an incredibly idiosyncratic take here and not one well supported.

But now we've moved the goal posts because we started with "Stop killing Fluffy for food and become a herbivore" and now we're on to "OK, so protein is fine so long as it is grown in a vat".

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 23:55:
I don't want to diminish your own experience, but the science is clear and so is the way forward.

Good, then maybe you'll actually read them and understand them as they come from someone who has fed himself and his family with his own effort and energy instead of someone sitting in an apartment and running down to the grocery store every time they get hungry. All while feeling morally superior based on an ideology that is just as myopic and hypocritical as the one they claim to be against.

The science is clear and it is not trying to undo millions of years of evolution while we pretend that real world problems that are vast and complex don't require vast and complex real world solutions that work within the needs and desires of a massive species. Strip out the ideological bullshit and self-congratulatory backpatting, and you're left with the need that humans require proteins, fruits, and vegetation to survive and thrive. That they only way to do that with a species that is exponentially overpopulating itself is to mimic what we would naturally grow and raise to eat with synthetic variants. Hopefully packaged and flavored in a way that will encourage adoption. So far, though, the attempts have been failures. I don't see anyone replacing their entire menus with Impossible burgers quite yet.

For myself, I will continue to raise livestock and grow non-protein nutrition sources to feed myself and my family. Because by the time the bill really comes due for our species' wild overpopulation, I will be long dead and beyond caring.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 20:24:
I can provide some insight from my own perspective.

My family has raised cattle for generations. They've always been free range and grass fed. They are raised for a single purpose: meat. Do we name them, do we know their personalities? Yes, yes we do but they are still a business product first and foremost. Do I have even a single twinge of guilt about eating the fine prime rib or ribeyes that came from a bull that I raised? Not in the slightest. That bull was raised for me to eat and enjoy. That is the whole point of that bull's existence.

This is true of the pigs and chickens that I have raised as well. All of them have been raised and existed for a singular purpose: the continuation of my own existence.

I've killed a great deal of cattle in my life. A bolt to the brain is nearly instantaneous. Less than a second between when you push the stud and you have a dead cow or bull. I would not call that cruel or tortuous. They, the cattle, get to range free across many, many acres without many of the stresses wild animals would face on a daily basis. They are provided excellent healthcare which is not in the least bit inexpensive. I fail to see how that, too, is cruel and/or tortuous.

The less intelligent among the vegans (which, generally, I have no problem with so long as they're not proselytizing) always like to trot out the "pet" talking point. I love my dog. I love her more than all but a handful of humans on the planet. She's my best four legged buddy. She helped me through my grief and gave me a purpose to start leaving the house. That being said, in a situation where it was we both starve to death or I kill her and eat her and don't starve to death? I'll thank her for giving her life so that mine may continue as I gnaw the marrow out her bones.I am an omnivore. I have a desire and a will to live. Nothing will stay my hand in the pursuit of my continued existence.

The other thing that is ridiculously dumb is that the same subgroup of people happily shop for their veggies while being willfully blind to the absolutely catastrophic damage that industrial vegetable farming and agribusiness does to the soil on a daily basis. Even if a person claims to only buy "organic", do they realize how little that means? USDA "organic" certification is a bad joke. So they don't get to use glysophates and phosphates. What they're using as replacements isn't any better for the soil and it's still running off in droves to kill off native flora and fauna in the water streams and downstream from them. This on top of the millions of gallons of diesel that are being burned to bring in their out-of-season to the area fruits and vegetables and the billions of tons of carbon emissions being created in the process.

So I find it all more than just a little hypocritical. If vegans were really serious, they'd grow their own food using hugelkultur or a similar method, collect rainwater in stone cisterns (because plastic and metal are also contributory to the destruction of the planet and your favorite furry little friends) to water with, create and depend 100% on their own compositing and fertilization methods,and completely feed themselves solely with the products of everything they've personally grown and have a verifiable chain of custody that proves ethics and sustainability.

Until then, it's all psuedointellectual masturbation and ego stroking.

The issue here is that I'm raising a moral question, and you're answering with environmental concerns. Which is a bit like if the police arrest a drink driver, and someone says "yeah, but the cop's vehicle is still producing CO2"

So I'll divide this into two sections and addresses both the moral and environmental:

1) The implication there is that if we raise any being for any purpose that suits us, we can do whatever we want to them... that's a dangerous concept.

So let's take that farming business, and let's say it's now raising dogs for food. Non vegan dog lovers would want your blood, if the comments in animal abuse posts on social media are anything to go by.

So the question is why do we not only accept violence to a few animals, but actively pay for it to happen? Like if we can make a dog taste good (by all accounts they do) it becomes OK to slit their throats?

I don't see any meaningful difference, especially when you see it through the eyes of the animal - to the animal is always animal abuse, regardless of what our purposes are.

This is further compounded by the fact that we do not need to eat animals for nutrition.



2) When it comes to crop production, something like 75% of it purely to feed farm animals. You need 18 calories of plants to get 1 calorie of meat. We'd likely not need such intensive crop production in a plant based world. It takes way more crops to feed 80 billion farm animals than it does to feed 7 billion humans. So you need not worry about what vegans eat, as overall it would be far less in total. That's why every major environmental and food-security think-tank recommends the world moving away from animal agriculture, and toward plant based diets.
People who farm like your family make up for only 1% of meat production. The rest is factory farmed, requiring most of the world's crops. The demand for animal foods is that high, and is an environmental disaster. So that leaves people with two choices, eat meat once a month so that animal farming can be minimised, or just eat a fully plant based diet, at least until cultured meat is widely available. Which should be any day now, as ours passed the FDA safety evaluation last week. It's a good solution, growing meat without the animal. None of the environmental or constant pandemic issues, and virtually none of the moral concerns.

I don't want to diminish your own experience, but the science is clear and so is the way forward.

This kid should play the lotto.
A cruise ship passenger was rescued by the Coast Guard hours after falling off.

I can provide some insight from my own perspective.

My family has raised cattle for generations. They've always been free range and grass fed. They are raised for a single purpose: meat. Do we name them, do we know their personalities? Yes, yes we do but they are still a business product first and foremost. Do I have even a single twinge of guilt about eating the fine prime rib or ribeyes that came from a bull that I raised? Not in the slightest. That bull was raised for me to eat and enjoy. That is the whole point of that bull's existence.

This is true of the pigs and chickens that I have raised as well. All of them have been raised and existed for a singular purpose: the continuation of my own existence.

I've killed a great deal of cattle in my life. A bolt to the brain is nearly instantaneous. Less than a second between when you push the stud and you have a dead cow or bull. I would not call that cruel or tortuous. They, the cattle, get to range free across many, many acres without many of the stresses wild animals would face on a daily basis. They are provided excellent healthcare which is not in the least bit inexpensive. I fail to see how that, too, is cruel and/or tortuous.

The less intelligent among the vegans (which, generally, I have no problem with so long as they're not proselytizing) always like to trot out the "pet" talking point. I love my dog. I love her more than all but a handful of humans on the planet. She's my best four legged buddy. She helped me through my grief and gave me a purpose to start leaving the house. That being said, in a situation where it was we both starve to death or I kill her and eat her and don't starve to death? I'll thank her for giving her life so that mine may continue as I gnaw the marrow out her bones.I am an omnivore. I have a desire and a will to live. Nothing will stay my hand in the pursuit of my continued existence.

The other thing that is ridiculously dumb is that the same subgroup of people happily shop for their veggies while being willfully blind to the absolutely catastrophic damage that industrial vegetable farming and agribusiness does to the soil on a daily basis. Even if a person claims to only buy "organic", do they realize how little that means? USDA "organic" certification is a bad joke. So they don't get to use glysophates and phosphates. What they're using as replacements isn't any better for the soil and it's still running off in droves to kill off native flora and fauna in the water streams and downstream from them. This on top of the millions of gallons of diesel that are being burned to bring in their out-of-season to the area fruits and vegetables and the billions of tons of carbon emissions being created in the process.

So I find it all more than just a little hypocritical. If vegans were really serious, they'd grow their own food using hugelkultur or a similar method, collect rainwater in stone cisterns (because plastic and metal are also contributory to the destruction of the planet and your favorite furry little friends) to water with, create and depend 100% on their own compositing and fertilization methods,and completely feed themselves solely with the products of everything they've personally grown and have a verifiable chain of custody that proves ethics and sustainability.

Until then, it's all psuedointellectual masturbation and ego stroking.

Schkorpio wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 16:30:
Don't you guys think it's funny that we enjoy all of these animal kindness videos, but then will actively pay for horrible animal killing and suffering for each meal?

We obviously care for animals, but then turn a blind eye to animal suffering when we eat.

If that guy who saved the drowning bird, but then ate her, we'd all think he's an asshole... but if he goes to a store and pays for a different bird to be killed everything is normal. And if he was to buy a plant based meal many people would call him a tree hugger hippie.

Strange world!

I grew up on a farm loving all of our animals: chickens, geese, cats, dogs, goats, sheep, etc. and enjoying each of their unique and funny personalities. And although we ate meat occasionally as a family growing up (mostly chicken and fish) I became vegetarian in college. These days I barely eat eggs or dairy, knowing the suffering those industries inflict upon animals even if they don't outright kill them.

Pretty good cyber Monday/Black Friday/whatever deal on a decent laptop. $379 for a Core i5 nicely loaded that usually sells for close to $600.

Picked one up as a xmas gift for a family member:

Acer Swift 3, 14.0" Full HD, 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7, 8GB, 512GB SSD, Silver, Windows 10, SF314-511-51A3

Link

We are all animals. I don't eat people. It's illegal and sounds gross to me. I don't eat dogs and cats because they generally belong to someone else and I have never been so hungry that I had to resort stealing food. I have tried a lot of weird ass stuff travelling, but I don't eat lots of animals on a regular basis for a ton of different reasons. I do eat beef, pork, and when in a bind.....poultry. I could live on just seafood. There is absolutely nothing hypocritical with drawing the lines where I see fit within my own diet. If you are a vegetarian and you don't eat cabbage are you now a hypocrite or do you just have a taste preference?

Nothing strange about personal preference. What's strange is drawing an arbitrary line like "animals" as if that line exists for any being other than humans and their need to label everything. Plants communicate. They even feel pain and communicate to other plants that they are in pain, and in some cases WHY they are in pain. I guess it's okay to eat them since we can't hear it or see it or whatever.

I can't remember what comedian said this (I think maybe Bill Maher), but it sums up my attitude:

"Eating veal is like eating puppy. But puppy tastes so good!"

Maybe you should ask this of farmers, who are closer to the slaughtering of their own meat, but also have pets they love. Until we have lab grown meat, this is the way it is.

We're omnivores. I like meat. No I don't want to slaughter my own, and I hope it's done in as humane a way as possible. I have raw vegan friends, and I totally respect their eating preference. My vegan friends at least don't lecture me. They come to eat with us, we serve them vegan and we eat what we eat. We go to eat at their home, they serve vegan and I enjoy their vegan meal.

However, I am more concerned by the hypocrisy of people in the thoroughbred racing industry. I was a sound engineer at three horse tracks in south Florida for a decade, and constantly watched the hypocrisy involved: People crying when a horse broke down and had to be put down, ignoring the fact that these beautiful animals are bred to run absurdly fast on legs ill designed for it, on often sloppy tracks in poor condition. Also the hypocrisy of $8 and hour human laborers, often immigrants, living in squalor in barn apartments, caring for multi million dollar horses worth far more to their owners, than the humans who care for them.

guys i may have gone a little black friday insane. i bought RGB power cables for my gpu XD

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 26, 2022, 16:33:
But veal tastes good. Bacon tastes good...

we're like vampires that pretend to be nice to humans XD

But veal tastes good. Bacon tastes good...

Don't you guys think it's funny that we enjoy all of these animal kindness videos, but then will actively pay for horrible animal killing and suffering for each meal?

We obviously care for animals, but then turn a blind eye to animal suffering when we eat.

If that guy who saved the drowning bird, but then ate her, we'd all think he's an asshole... but if he goes to a store and pays for a different bird to be killed everything is normal. And if he was to buy a plant based meal many people would call him a tree hugger hippie.

Strange world!

Blue - High School football still going on here in California. I don't know the schedule on the east coast, but here on the west coast they could be playing for a couple more weekends depending on conference standings etc.

Rats blamed for eating 500 kilograms of cannabis stored by Indian police.

Modern day version of "the dog ate my homework."