US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1545

On June 12 2019 01:57 Simberto wrote:


Sure, they can, as long as you don't start at the same axioms. Rationality simply describes a way to derive results from base truths, but those do not necessarily need to be the same for all persons. Different people have different goals and different ethical value positions, which can lead to different rational choices given a specific situation.

As an oversimplified example, lets say you have one person who is allergic to meat and animal products, and another which is allergic to vegetables in general. If both of those people compose their diet rationally, they will have radically different results.

On June 12 2019 01:58 farvacola wrote:

Sure they can; if the values underlying the points of rational comparison are themselves both the qualitative substance of the two positions and arational or irrational, then both viewpoints can claim rational justification.

Edit: holy crap Simberto, that’s a crazy accurate doubling of explanations lol

On June 12 2019 02:03 KwarK wrote:
Can we not just say that veganism is like giving money to charity? It's clearly a good thing to do, some people might have valid reasons why they can't do it, most of us don't do it even though it's something we should, and none of us like to be reminded that we ought to.

On June 12 2019 02:12 Sbrubbles wrote:


Just adding to what you're saying, a simple example is individual vs colective rationality. As an individual, it makes sense for me to eat meat because I like to do it and a single person has practically no effect on the food industry. Collectively, it might be rational for everyone to stop doing it in order to save the planet (assuming a wide range of hypothesis that I might or might not agree with). So, there you go it's both rational and irrational to eat meat.

On June 12 2019 02:25 Nebuchad wrote:


I don't necessarily agree with this framing but if I did I wouldn't conclude that it's both rational and irrational to eat meat. I would figure out which of "practically no effect on the food industry" and "in order to save the planet" is a better argument, and I would adjust accordingly. Either we're saving the planet or we aren't =)

I don't like the framing because it adds a constraint to the question in the same way that being allergic to vegetables does. Like, we aren't trying to answer "is veganism rational if you're in a circumstance that forces you to eat meat", of course it isn't. Nor are we trying to answer "is veganism rational if being a vegan saves the planet", of course it is.

On June 12 2019 02:06 farvacola wrote:

Sure, I agree with that, especially with the charity comparison in mind.

On June 12 2019 02:36 Sbrubbles wrote:


Being a vegan does not save the planet. Everyone (or some large amount of people) being vegan might. This distinction is important because it marks the difference between individual and collective rationality.

On June 12 2019 02:37 IgnE wrote:


I don’t think veganism is necessarily “clearly a good thing to do” unless you put a ton of contingent qualifications on whom/when/where/why.

I just saw an article recently about how rice farming is killing the planet. Any sustainable long term approach to food production is going to involve a lot of changes to nearly every aspect of the food industry. It’s not a matter of simply replacing cow and pig farms with grains. And I am fairly confident that there is a sustainable way to produce meat.

On June 12 2019 02:53 KwarK wrote:

There's no existing efficient way to replace grains with meat. Food derives from sunlight. Meat takes more sq miles of earth hit by sunlight to produce than grains due to energy lost in the raising of the animals. More sq miles of earth means more animal displacement, more deforestation and destruction of existing habitats, more carbon emissions, and less biodiversity.

The way we farm animals is also extremely unethical.

The argument that reducing the use of animal products, of which veganism is the logical end point, is a good thing to do makes itself without contingent qualifications. The world couldn't feed itself if everyone ate like Americans.

On June 12 2019 04:14 xM(Z wrote:
you could double/triple up the systems. ex: grow chickens and cows on the same plot(rotation schemes) plus, you could add in trees too(middle sized fruit trees).
thing is, the meat consumption does need to go down a notch.

On June 12 2019 02:53 KwarK wrote:

There's no existing efficient way to replace grains with meat. Food derives from sunlight. Meat takes more sq miles of earth hit by sunlight to produce than grains due to energy lost in the raising of the animals. More sq miles of earth means more animal displacement, more deforestation and destruction of existing habitats, more carbon emissions, and less biodiversity.

The way we farm animals is also extremely unethical.

The argument that reducing the use of animal products, of which veganism is the logical end point, is a good thing to do makes itself without contingent qualifications. The world couldn't feed itself if everyone ate like Americans.

On June 12 2019 04:21 KwarK wrote:

The doubled up systems you're describing are massively less efficient than the inhumane systems already in place. As a rule if the animals can see natural light it's less efficient than the current system.

Ethical farming is possible. At some point this year I'm going to get some chickens for eggs so that I'll know that the eggs are ethically farmed. But I also know that that's a luxury I'll have due to my financial position and that most people can't keep a flock.

On June 12 2019 04:34 xM(Z wrote:
i don't know what context you get your info from but i can't take it at face value. even when you go with the "but, but the energy..." route(when animals move they lose energy so they need more feed), every thing you can come up with, is based on old agriculture mantras(what animals need(protein and such), in vitro stats and numbers). that needs to be reassessed and have quality and not quantity as a goal.
Ex: animals grown outside(in the sun; pigs mostly) produce D3 vitamin in their fat. that's quality than needs to be factored in.

Edit: plus, if you go into permaculture, those people talk about surplus given by symbiotic relationship between systems, when animal waste is being factored in(which bigAG doesn't account for due to antibiotic use for ex).
also, there are some 'new' ways of grazing being worked on that regenerate grass faster than it's consumed(in current practices). they try and follow nature that used to feed herds of millions of buffalo, reindeer, wildebeest and so on in less surface area than we do now; plus, the methane goes down when animals are grass fed so that should be accounted for too.

there's a lot of stuff here dude, your reductionism to energy only(confined/restricted to how we measure it) is useless to me; a 1:1 ratio is achievable without polluting.

On June 12 2019 05:01 KwarK wrote:

I don't know how farming is done in your country but in the US it's done with feed lots and factory farms. Tens of thousands of animals squeezed into tiny spaces turning misery into meat. It's not about methods of grazing, these animals never see dirt in their life. They're standing on a concrete floor eating government subsidized corn.

The methods you're describing with complementary and symbiotic farming are lovely and I would absolutely support them, the problem is that they cannot meet the demand. If we switched to those methods of farming meat would return to being a luxury item, everyone would consume less of it.

On June 12 2019 05:01 KwarK wrote:

I don't know how farming is done in your country but in the US it's done with feed lots and factory farms. Tens of thousands of animals squeezed into tiny spaces turning misery into meat. It's not about methods of grazing, these animals never see dirt in their life. They're standing on a concrete floor eating government subsidized corn.

The methods you're describing with complementary and symbiotic farming are lovely and I would absolutely support them, the problem is that they cannot meet the demand. If we switched to those methods of farming meat would return to being a luxury item, everyone would consume less of it.

At a conference a couple weeks ago an activist who does work in Africa recounted an encounter she had with the minister of agriculture of a certain African country. The minister spoke with excitement about the high-tech agricultural technologies he was bringing into the country in partnership with large agribusiness companies, so the activist brought up the topic of organic agriculture. The minister said, “Stop. You don't understand. We cannot afford such luxuries here. In my country, people are starving.”

This reflects a common conception about organic agriculture – that it sacrifices productivity in the interests of the environment and health. It stands to reason that if you forgo pesticides and chemical fertilizer, yields are going to suffer.

This, in fact, is a myth. In Sacred Economics I cite research showing that when it is done properly, organic growing methods can deliver two to three times the yield of conventional methods. (Studies showing the opposite are poorly constructed. Of course if you take two fields and plant each with a monocrop, then the one without pesticides will do worse than the one with, but that isn't really what organic farming is.) Conventional agriculture doesn't seek to maximize yield per acre; it seeks to maximize yield per unit of labor. If we had 10% of the population engaged in agriculture rather than the current 1%, we could easily feed the country without petrochemicals or pesticides.

It turns out, though, that my statistics are way too conservative. The latest permaculture methods can deliver much more than just double or triple the yield of conventional farming. I recently came across this article by David Blume chronicling his nine-year permaculture enterprise in California. Running a CSA for 300-450 people on two acres of land, he achieved yields eight times what the Department of Agriculture says is possible per square foot. He didn't do it by “mining the soil” either – soil fertility increased dramatically over his time there.