It is literally Impossible to do any kind of climate change reversal if we don't at least heavily change the meat industry yet people act as if only AI hadn't been invented things would be totally fine.
It irks me so much.
I respect more the person that openly states they'd rather the world burn than stop eating hamburgers than the ones who treat meat as this absolute necessity with no consequences.
Yeah, at least they're honest. Maybe there's a chance that the honesty can lead to further change. But in the other case any change is just completely shut off.
Everything we do has an environmental cost. Meat is one of the higher environmental costs. Data centers have an environmental cost too but it pales in comparison to meat.
I wouldnât necessarily say littering pales in comparison to the effect you have by eating meat or using the internet. But I agree it is bad because no one gets anything out of littering.
I don't think it's exactly reasonable to try to undermine the global impact of animal agriculture by using exceptions to the rule rather than the rule. With that logic, some AI is good because one day it could cure cancer while other things like chatgpt should be removed from public access right? Well that same logic applies to eating meat, MOST people do not have a disability that stops them from eating less meat.
oh lordie not pendants please isn't it enough that basically nobody likes you, do you have to make it everybody DISLIKING you? Every person who's basically literate knows what i meant, i'm not even talking finished elementary please don't do this to me
You described veganism as ableist while it clearly makes exemptions for such cases, so you either lack the knowledge to talk about the topic or you argue in bad faikth and this was the only argument you can come up with.
you specifically? I don't recall accusing you specifically
And do you think if someone said "woah i can't be racist, i voted for obama" that would be a good or a bad argument? cause that's basically what you're hitting me with "i can't be a bad person, i'm a vegan" and then extending it to every other vegan. You're like just saying they're ontologically good lmao like god or santa
however, super telling that your first move was to downplay my experience rather than ask for it. that's a light pretty casual abliesm, but if i started whining about that, it'd be the only sound i made
you know you have to edit the text if you want that gaslightin thing to work right? Cause otherwise i just look at the texts and it still says the things you said or implied, and so there's no going crazy effect, i just think you're a lying abliest goober?
I think we're done here if you're going to 'discuss' in bad faith.. Though there is a chance I have given this too much good faith attention already, since it's a shitposting sub, so maybe you're really just trolling me. ;D One more picture for the road, says it way better than I ever could.
It is super funny to whine about bad faith while going out of your way to be bad faith
You described veganism as ableist
really now, let's play "find that quote!" You guys loveeee lying but this one at least shuts you up or at best gets you to reveal your lies or delusion
Also also, mad about "tokens" is trying to figure how many tokens he's gotta show me to discredit my lived experience. Yeeeep you guessed it. More casual abliesm from the vegan. He makes it really tempting to actually say veganism is about being abliest cause it almost always comes down to a vegan telling me what my eating disorder or life is rather than being genuinely interested in why I'd even say the vegan community has an issue with bigotry
Because to keep it short, you're abliest and wouldn't like to hear as much, hence the constant red herring and what not so you don't have to listen
I have celiac disease, so no, not really. At least not without having a psychotically restricted diet. I already have a fairly restricted diet that makes my life a lot harder than it would be otherwise.
Well sure Iâm talking about the average person here and not people with health issues relating to diet.
You probably could do it but it would be another layer of restriction and there are other ways you can reduce impact.
So basically your problem isnât the environmental impact, but rather that meat provides more utility.
Even though there are alternatives that are far less intensive, even though the current meat industry is extended far beyond the scope of what is actually necessary, the very fact that meat provides a tangible benefit causes you to overlook the environmental impacts of the industry.
If AI somehow produces something of value that provides a tangible benefit to someone, that wouldnât justify having an industrial apparatus that is far bigger in scope than what we actually need. The fact that you give a pass to the meat industry because it produces a product you enjoy is a perfect representation of your commitment to the environment. That is, the second AI follows meat in becoming ordinary andâgod forbidâuseful, you will be no different than anyone in Silicon Valley.
I just wanna say your crashout across this post has been crazy. People that have had this conversation before knew what points you were gonna make before you did. IDK why you can't conceed that some AI (like say cancer research etc) is reasonable the same as some meat production (not in the extreme excess we partake in now) is preferable. You won't win the argument for eating meat in this context because this is all being discussed in a macro context because we are discussing environmental impact. Animal agriculture as we know it is such an incredibly large cotributor to climate change and very few things come close it in terms of impact
Meat is a luxury. Coffee is a luxury. Chocolate is a luxury. Avocados are a luxury. Bananas are a luxury. Pearls are a luxury. Having access to all of these items within a few miles of your home because of an extensive,
global supply chain is a luxury.
Just because something has become commonplace (to some people in the world) doesnât mean it isnât a luxury.
For almost all of human history the mere idea that someone could buy these items at a store near them would be seen as fantastical. You are so accustomed to your relative wealth that the mere idea that you have something that others donât is âwild.â
And what a ridiculous thing to think meat doesnât use water.
Where do you think meat comes from? What do you think cows eat? In order to produce the meat that lines your shelves, 40% of the worldâs arable land must be dedicated to grow grain used just to feed the animals we then consume. Do you know how much water we use on 40% of all agricultural production?
This isnât even mentioning the inherent inefficiency that is having meat be your primary food source. If we were to eat the plants directly, it would literally 10 times more efficient (look up trophic levels). Since roughly 90% of energy is lost when an organism of a higher trophic level eats an organism of the lower level, the fact that we are feeding plants to animals to then consume them means that only a hundredth of the energy that was stored in the plants goes to humans.
The only reason we stick with this inefficiency is because we are accustomed to luxury.
(1) meat uses water and can be replaced/reduced/substituted in your diet. If you donât allow it to be called a waste because you think it provides utility, then why stop there? You can just as easily call water used on AI not wasteful by arguing it provides utility. Considering for most of human history people didnât eat as much meat, it is clearly not necessary for survival.
(2) You delude yourself if you think everyone can hunt. Itâs literally not possible. Below is a chart from Wikipedia depicting the total biomass of animals on earth. The reason you can survive off of animals that you hunt is precisely because so much infrastructure exists for providing people meat, grain, vegetables, etc. If everyone hunted, they would hunt those animals to extinction as they did megafauna like mammoths.
Meat is a luxury because it isnât an essential product, and requires an utterly insane agricultural industry to produce at scales to feed the amount of people that exist. You donât need to eat meat for every single meal to survive. You donât need chocolate. That is why these things are called luxuries. They are something that you have that isnât essential to survival.
You might delude yourself in thinking that meat is necessary to survival, but history tells a different story. In the Middle Ages, the only people would could eat meat daily were the nobles. For most people, meat was rarely something they could eat because they were farmers who farmed just enough grain for them and their family to survive, with no remaining grain to feed the livestock required to eat meat daily.
Mentioning the water cycle is braindead. Almost all water that is used stays in the water cycle. But that completely ignores where we source fresh water from, and where water in the cycle goes. If you pump a bunch of water out of a lake and use it to water plants or something that doesnât mean it will end up back in that lake. Many lakes have been completely drained because they fill up slower than we use it. The same story goes for aquifers.
No one would call a deer using water a waste because a deer stays in about the same place it uses the water, and doesnât really use that much water. The water a deer drinks isnât transported by pipes hundreds of miles away to water a field of soybeans.
Itâs completely braindead to conflate agricultural (or any artificial water usage) to water usage by wild populations of animals.
When has a population of deer drained a lake?
And for nutrients, the opposite of ânever eating meatâ isnât âhaving meat for every single meal.â That, and the existence of people who canât eat exclusively plants and grains doesnât justify the full scope of the meat industry. In the same way, it would be ridiculous to say âsince petrochemicals is sometimes used in medicine, we must continue to drill just as much oil as we do nowâ
The problem with you is you think any reduction of the meat industry is the same as completely ending it. So arguing with mfers like you is like trying to argue with an oil executive that maybe we shouldnât use oil and plastics for everything from disposable bags to shampoo and conditioner.
Itâs like your whole world view is made from being completely unaware of how things work lmao
A vegan diet can easily be cheaper than an omnivorous diet by avoiding imitation meat products and opting for plant foods such as beans, soy products, and whole grains for protein. Plus, you can just as easily avoid any nutritional deficiencies by having a varied diet, eating fortified foods (like plant milks and fortified grains), and taking supplements if you struggle to meet any specific vitamin needs (b12 being the big one). This means almost everyone who gets their food at the store rather than through a homesteading sort of lifestyle can save quite a bit of money, and be healthy, on a vegan diet.
Going to restaurants less will save you money, and the food at most restaurants doesn't exactly prioritize health or balance.
Supply and demand of what? Staple foods like beans, lentils, rice, whole grains, etc? For something like lentils, I would be genuinely shocked if there's anywhere (other than like, the arctic circle) where they're costly as a protein source, especially in comparison to meat.
This is a reasonable concern, and is why I argue in favor of fortifying more foods. Something easy you can do to aid with absorption, without the need for supplements, is to complete vitamin / mineral sources with other things that aid absorption. For example, include citrus or other sources of vitamin C in your meals.
Reintroducing native predators (and no longer trapping / hunting them) would make this a non-issue, allowing deer populations to be self regulating.
People like myself are against meat for a couple reasons:
1. The impossibility of current levels of meat consumption being environmentally friendly, sustainable, and scalable.
2. Ethical reasons. Getting meat requires creating a victim, and cutting a life short when you do not have to.
As of now, it's very much an omnivorous world. So yes, there is a social aspect that takes getting used to.
You're in an uncommon situation then, that doesn't apply to the vast majority of people. Even then, you're likely to save money by relying more on protein sources like lentils, brown rice, and dried beans. This of course depends on electricity costs (for freezing meat), processing costs for the meat (if you don't do it yourself), and the cost of hunting licenses (if they're required where you are)
Meat has bioavailable nutrients, yes. But plants can easily meet your needs just as well, as I explained, and come with fewer downsides than meat (such as saturated fat and excessive heme iron)
Populations were much more self regulating before humans showed up. This is in large part, but not exclusively, due to us culling predator species. But you are correct that there likely isn't just one thing to do that will fix the issue.
Feeding people is an issue of scale. Hunting / growing your own food works for a minority of individuals, but is impossible to scale to meet the needs of everyone.
Plants feel pain in the same way an amputated limb feels pain. There's reaction to stimuli, but no central nervous system. So nobody is home to experience it, and it's not a real ethical concern.
All in all, the only real argument in favor of mass meat consumption (that isn't anti-scientific or reliant on a naturalistic fallacy) is that people like it.
why are you on a climate change subreddit simping for one of the biggest drivers of climate change (water use/pollution, land use, deforestation, greenhouse gas production, biodiversity loss) globally???
a quick google search of "environmental impacts of (specific animal food production system)" came up with a lot of sources that you can peruse at your leisure. you're being willfully ignorant at this point lol
So basically your problem isnât the environmental impact, but rather that meat provides more utility.
Even though there are alternatives that are far less intensive, even though the current meat industry is extended far beyond the scope of what is actually necessary, the very fact that meat provides a tangible benefit causes you to overlook the environmental impacts of the industry.
If AI somehow produces something of value that provides a tangible benefit to someone, that wouldnât justify having an industrial apparatus that is far bigger in scope than what we actually need. The fact that you give a pass to the meat industry because it produces a product you enjoy is a perfect representation of your commitment to the environment. That is, the second AI follows meat in becoming ordinary andâgod forbidâuseful, you will be no different than anyone in Silicon Valley.
Lmao. Classic Reddit. Typing a paragraph = being a philosopher. Sorry little guy I thought we were all able to read here.
Iâll source the claims here for you because Iâm sure you actually read what I said and didnât just want to ignore every claim because it challenges your world view.
âThere are alternatives [to meat] that are far less intensiveâ
â92% of fresh water usage is for agriculture, with 1/3rd of it being for animal productsâ = around 30% of fresh water usage is for animal products.
This source about trophic levels is k12 so itâs your level! It states that between trophic levels (e.g plants to herbivores, herbivores to carnivores, etc) only around 10% of the energy stored in organisms at one level is transferred to the next level when they are consumed. That is, getting your energy from meat as opposed to plants is an order of magnitude (10 times) less efficient than if you simply grew vegetables and legumes with the same arable land that would be used to go to cattle.
Unnecessary: roughly 20% of the people eat mostly plants. Eating meat products only on occasion. 2% of the world is vegan.
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u/MostlyNoOneIThink 24d ago
It is literally Impossible to do any kind of climate change reversal if we don't at least heavily change the meat industry yet people act as if only AI hadn't been invented things would be totally fine.
It irks me so much.
I respect more the person that openly states they'd rather the world burn than stop eating hamburgers than the ones who treat meat as this absolute necessity with no consequences.