[HN Gopher] FDA Approves First CRISPR Cows for Beef
___________________________________________________________________
FDA Approves First CRISPR Cows for Beef
Author : Ice_cream_suit
Score : 165 points
Date : 2022-03-26 04:44 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (modernfarmer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (modernfarmer.com)
| bannedbybros wrote:
| verisimi wrote:
| This is great news, and overdue!
|
| Of course there are issues with mere humans editing creatures,
| and true, coarse-grained crispr editing could result in
| unintended consequences.
|
| But our ethics committees see nothing wrong with this. And as my
| morality depends on what ethics are commonly said to be ethical,
| this is a decision I am delighted to accept. And think of all the
| invalid children this will help!
|
| Sure, I'm not clear on what has been edited here. Nor do I
| understand the legal implications of the editing, where a
| corporation is now considered to be a patent holder in a living
| cereus.
|
| And I'm not sure what the future holds for people, even though I
| have read talk that dna was changed by vaccines (not just rna).
| Surely, corporations wouldn't argue that they have a legal
| interest in people, and that their interests need to be accounted
| for?
|
| No, this is great news. Onwards and upwards into the brave new
| world! And special thanks to the FDA who have bravely represented
| the best interests of humanity, refusing to kowtow to corporate
| interests. I only sleep as well as I do thanks to my wonderful
| government and its 3-letter agencies! Good job.
| microjim wrote:
| Would count this categorically as one of the ways we do not want
| to be using technology in the context of climate change, as it's
| bypassing the negative feedback loop that already wasn't strong
| enough to prevent us getting to this point in the first place.
| atemerev wrote:
| But if the loop is eventually not strong enough to have
| negative effects, why should we reinforce it? I am quite
| optimistic that the climate change crisis will be eventually
| resolved by the combination of engineering to restore the
| environment and adapting our existing technologies to damage it
| less (like it's already happening). Humans are very adaptive.
| TruthIsHeresy wrote:
| What happens when human adaptivity outpaces our species'
| ability to accurately perceive and adequately understand the
| impact of our own adaptivity?
|
| We seem to be becoming increasingly reliant upon technology
| which is increasingly untested to solve problems that are
| increasingly a result of this adaptivity. It's a vicious
| cycle in which humans identify a problem but lack the
| necessary perspective to identify and solve the root cause of
| the problem so we end up with inadequate solutions that
| mostly prolong and exacerbate the original problem rather
| than actually solving it. Adaptivity aside, I just don't
| think humans are at a point in which we possess the necessary
| perspective for us to safely engage in large scale commercial
| genetic modification of life without it backfiring on us in
| some horribly spectacular way.
| microjim wrote:
| At the risk of us getting too abstract here, the trouble with
| said loop being weak is that it is difficult to link our
| actions and their impact on our environment. It is weak
| because the forces in question operate on a very long time
| scale, and the system hasn't self corrected as early as one
| would hope.
|
| We are indeed very adaptive! It's simply a case of us
| adapting our behaviour to mitigate the consequences, rather
| than just adapting to live with them.
| mrfusion wrote:
| We need to be punished for our sins against the environment.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I think we should go a step further and self-flagulate,
| honestly. Seriously though, this quote made me laugh: "the
| gene-edited cattle are the same--as far as a consumer is
| concerned." They should peek in on the anti-vaccine crowd for
| a glimpse at consumer reality. I'm sure more than a few
| normies are going to want to see this on the label as well.
| 34679 wrote:
| "the gene-edited cattle are the same--as far as a consumer
| is concerned."
|
| For me, that statement invokes thoughts of "counterfeit
| cattle". By that logic, there's no harm to the consumer
| when someone sells a knock-off purse or watch, as long as
| it functions the same as the original. Taken a step
| further, there's no harm in stealing from someone if the
| victim doesn't know they've been robbed.
|
| I'm not against using advances in technology to feed more
| people. I believe the suffering of a hungry human outweighs
| the suffering of that human's potential next meal. I don't
| think it's wrong or immoral for a lion to eat an antelope.
|
| But I do believe honesty and openness are important. I want
| consumers to be able to make educated decisions on what
| they consume. It should be easy for someone who can afford
| an all-organic diet to purchase products that are in fact
| organic.
| riteme wrote:
| newman555 wrote:
| "help endure climate change", while beef and eating meat is one
| of the major contributors to climate change ... This is wrong on
| so many levels.
| [deleted]
| dmix wrote:
| Horse breeding is a big business. That would probably be a good
| target for this sort of thing.
| kmlx wrote:
| maybe falconry as well? big business in some parts of the
| world...
| Eduard wrote:
| Maybe naked mole-rats as well?
| koonsolo wrote:
| In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which are
| called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural, so I'm very
| afraid what kind of monstrosity the industry can come up with
| when using gene manipulation.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=dikbil
| mbg721 wrote:
| The US has Dolly-Parton-esque chickens too, it's not a new
| phenomenon.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Yes, those we have in Belgium too.
|
| My grandfather was a farmer, and at his old age he bought
| such a chicken. He was amazed and astounded that within a few
| weeks it became so big it couldn't stand on its feet anymore.
|
| He didn't buy such a chicken again.
| kawsper wrote:
| Denmark have been breeding pigs to have a higher amount of
| piglets, but it makes the death rate higher, about 25.000
| piglets die a day, and the pre-wean mortality rate is ~21%.
|
| We're also exporting the technology and knowledge of breeding
| pigs.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/danish-b...
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| > In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which
| are called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural
|
| It's muscular hyperplasia obtained from inbreeding:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue
|
| They did the same thing in Piedmont, Italy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese_cattle
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| "Breaded" means coated in breadcrumbs. I assume they weren't
| _bred_ like that.
| runeks wrote:
| Sounds delicious
| cik2e wrote:
| I pictured a whole live cow covered in breadcrumbs instead of
| fur when I read that. The southern US would be a huge
| importer.
| prepend wrote:
| I pictured a cow bred for country fried steak or snitzel or
| something and was intrigued by the idea of animals bred for
| specific preparation methods.
|
| I only hope this crisper age will allow for amazing
| animals. I'm hoping they can breed cows with cheese inside
| their muscles.
| bombcar wrote:
| If it was a chocolate cow you'd have chicken fried steak
| and a milkshake all in one.
|
| A marvel of engineering.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Ha yeah, I was already questioning myself if it was the
| correct spelling :D.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Most livestock, fruits, grains and vegetable that exist today
| and we buy in our store shelves are all the result of selective
| breeding by humans over the last 100-200 years. More recently
| as the science and ability to do selective breeding has
| improved. Genetic manipulation is going to accelerate something
| that is already happening. For me genetic manipulation of
| livestock and grains is not as problematic as the
| western/richer countries patenting genes and making poor
| countries pay through the nose for it.
| nojito wrote:
| If this didn't happen in pharmaceuticals it wouldn't happen
| in gene editing.
| runeks wrote:
| > Most livestock, fruits, grains and vegetable that exist
| today and we buy in our store shelves are all the result of
| selective breeding by humans over the last 100-200 years.
|
| More like thousands of years.
|
| Also, before humans were selectively breeding, animals were
| "unconsciously breeding" e.g. fruits by eating the tastiest
| ones and thereby spreading their seeds.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I don't fully agree with that timeline, at least not when you
| consider it more broadly.
|
| My granddad was a farmer (he was born around 1920). Back
| then, animals were still treated fairly well, and the animals
| themselves were also still natural. The real
| industrialization of livestock came after that, when he was
| already retired.
|
| Having raised and killed animals all of his life, he actually
| wasn't too fond of how animals were raised and treated after
| that. For sure he regarded all specifically bred animals as
| unnatural.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| What has how animals are treated got to do with selective
| breeding? Even your granddad probably used selective
| breeding.
| koonsolo wrote:
| The real question is how far do you take selective
| breeding.
|
| Do you want chickens that can't stand on their own legs?
| Olden days: no, currently: yes.
|
| Do you want cows so fat that they can't naturally give
| birth to calves? Olden days: no, currently: yes.
|
| How do you breed animals? Oldens days: put the male
| together with the female. Currenly, jerk of the male and
| inject the semen in the female.
|
| It's all industrialized. And what selective breeding has
| to do with how animals are treated? Everything. Unless
| you claim chickens too fat for their legs, cows too fat
| to give birth, etc, has no impact on their well being.
| d23 wrote:
| Dystopian beyond belief
| kickout wrote:
| My opinion continues to be tools like CRISPR and genome editing
| techniques are just that--tools. Can be used for good or bad
| purposes depending on your context and bias.
|
| Most people associate these genome modification tools as
| inherently bad because the first generation of them were tied to
| herbicide and pesticide resistance. Whether you agree with those
| applications or not, its clear those tools worked and were
| extremely powerful. I would personally argue they work too well
| and the 2nd and 3rd order effects are doing the most damage. But
| these tools exist in regulatory frameworks that are archaic and
| rigid and when billions of dollars are on the line companies
| figure out ways to play in between the lines.
|
| An optimistic person might want these tools to be used to
| increase taste profiles, shelf-life, nutritional content, range
| of adaptation, etc. A pessimist probably sees this as a faster
| way to add more herbicide or pesticide traits to enable those
| chemicals to be applied.
|
| I'm very bullish on genome editing tech. Lots of these comments
| are applying 1990s thinking to a 2030 and beyond tech. Akin to
| 1950s 'futuristic' predictions showing flying cars.
| foobiekr wrote:
| You know, I agree with you, I think there's not necessarily a
| problem with CRISPR or GMOs or mutagenic selective breeding, or
| whatever.
|
| But there are real issues: novel introductions make it harder
| to define how we talk about food safety in general, since
| almost all of it is based on both a very poor science
| (nutrition science is a dumpster fire) and long-term use by
| humans (GRAS) where previous generations were test subjects.
| The industry around this basically ignores these issues and
| pretends they don't exist and they label anyone raising issues
| as "anti-science."
|
| Put another way: industries _usually_ don't end up untrusted
| because people are crazy, they _usually_ earned it, and GMO big
| ag has earned it in spades.
|
| It's not just the original go to market being terminator seeds
| and submarining in patents, or to enable soaking fields with
| RoundUp, it's also that when people talk about GMOs, they're
| often talking about transgenic GMOs, things like Flavr Savr and
| the generally borderline-gaslighting issue around the industry
| and FDA pretending that labeling food with actual information
| would be bad (which has come up over and over, not just with
| GMOs).
|
| There's also the disingenuous approach to pretending that
| modern genetic engineering is "just" accelerated breeding,
| which frankly isn't true and mostly relies on the fact that
| modern breeding uses mutagens to accelerate a process which
| makes coming up with a useful definition of GRAS quite
| difficult.
|
| Basically the industry's argument was "GMO is no
| worse/different than what we've been doing for thirty years
| that you didn't know about, so it's fine" which, shocking, has
| kind of fallen flat because it is an outright lie.
|
| Gaslighting is an overused term, but the industry's"it's just
| selective breeding!" argument is really pretty phony, and
| that's ignoring transgenic GMOs.
|
| Before I get labeled "anti-science", I'm actually pro GMO, pro-
| GMO food and so on. But only in a functional regulatory
| environment, which we do not have at the moment.
| kickout wrote:
| All good points. Another topic lost in these debates is _very
| real alternatives_. People lament fields soaked in glyphosate
| or neonics. True, there are real problems with these actives.
| Unfortunately, these chemicals largely replaced _even more
| dangerous_ chemicals like DDT and other nasty organs-
| phosphates (I think sarin gas was discovered while searching
| for pesticides?).
|
| It's unfortunate people don't have complete information and
| make the assumption of glyphosate/whatever or nothing when
| that reality never really ever existed.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| DDT was never that dangerous. Rachel Carson was simply the
| Andrew Wakefield of her generation and her sackless
| colleagues in the field wouldn't call her out, unlike the
| medical field coming together to stand up to Wakefield's
| racket today. Hell, she had a degree in Marine Science, not
| Biochemistry.
|
| https://studiomatters.com/the-toxic-legacy-of-rachel-carson
| kickout wrote:
| Eh, slight disagree. DDT at that scale is problematic. No
| comment on silent spring, but to clearly struck a cord
| with public perception-- real or baseless
| sjmm1989 wrote:
| Anyone who has ever eaten bread or a banana, has already been
| technically in some fashion or another, eating GMO's.
|
| Norman Borlaug helped rid us of Wheat rust, which took a more
| 'natural' approach to gene editing.
|
| The banana has been a mutant for decades now.
| qqtt wrote:
| Also lemons, broccoli, and pretty much any modern vegetable
| or fruit - humans have been selectively growing plants since
| humans have had the knowledge of how to grow things period.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| What does that have to do with GMOs?
| qqtt wrote:
| That by selective growing of plants over thousands of
| years, we have altered the genetic make up of the foods
| we consume. While "GMO" is a "new technique", reductively
| this isn't exactly another dimension compared to over
| many years isolating and growing things like broccoli and
| lemons.
|
| Yes, GMO is a new technique to modify food sources away
| from "naturally occurring processes" - but again things
| like lemons and broccoli are also not naturally occurring
| in nature.
| hiptobecubic wrote:
| This stupid, pedantic way of talking about the issue
| helps no one.
| kickout wrote:
| The banana is a seedless triploid (seeds don't form because
| they have an odd number of chromosome pairs). This is a
| common mechanism in fruits to achieve seedless varieties that
| can then be propagated vegetatively.
|
| The term GMO has functionally lost all meaning to me as
| anyone can load up a straw man defining it how they need it
| to be defined at that point in time. Borlaug was a great
| plant breeder, but some of his inventions ushered in those
| tricky 2nd and 3rd order effects that I alluded to earlier.
| Namely, the response of (wheat) crops to synthetic fertilizer
| and how much synthetic fertilizer is both an economic boom
| and and environmental quagmire. Interesting debates no doubt
| Jon_Lowtek wrote:
| Are you trying to conflate "selective breeding" and "genetic
| modification" or do you mean "US Americans" when you say
| "anyone"?
|
| If by "Anyone" you mean "US Americans", then you are probably
| referring to that vitamin A added GMO "golden banana" that is
| field tested there. But in that case there would be no need
| to say "technically in some fashion or another". _(EDIT: i
| must have misinterpreted a single source, there is a lack of
| secondary sources confirming any large scale availability of
| this banana in the USA. Sorry! The field test is in Uganda
| not America)_
|
| The banana we are used to (Cavendish, ~99% world export
| market share) is not a GMO, because that term has a
| definition and a meaning, no matter how much people try to
| conflate "selective breeding" and "genetically modified
| organism".
|
| What you are doing is called "muddying the water" and in
| general it is not helpful in serious debate, except when you
| aim for winning an argument, instead of reaching consent or
| discovering a deeper truth. I am not saying it is invalid to
| make a comparison between selective breeding and gene
| editing, highlighting the similarities. Doing that is
| perfectly fine. What is not ok, in my opinion, is trying to
| attempt to redefine and twist the words used by the other
| side of an argument to describe their position such that they
| can not express their position anymore. Note that sometimes
| word definitions are vague and reaching a common
| understanding can look similar to this pattern, but in this
| case the _" technically in some fashion or another"_ gives
| the intention away.
| samatman wrote:
| Speaking as someone who has genetically modified several
| organisms, please don't do this.
|
| Genetic engineering is a distinctive and new technique for
| modifying the genomes of organisms, and the results of
| genetic engineering are referred to as GMOs.
|
| The rhetorical flourish of decompiling the acronym and
| pretending it is descriptive rather than nominal does no one
| any favors. It's disingenuous, and doesn't alleviate
| someone's distrust of genetic engineering, because they know
| perfectly well that you know what they meant and are
| deflecting the conversation.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Exactly this.
| sjmm1989 wrote:
| No, I took the actual definition, and you just don't like
| it.
|
| Just because other people are ignorant or arrogant, doesn't
| mean we should cater to their ignorance or arrogance. But
| it does mean we should make it easier to differentiate the
| key differences by not re-using the same acronym over and
| over again.
|
| Instead of calling the 'new methods' GMO's, we should be
| calling them something else, instead of confusing the
| dummies. The new techniques folk like you are using should
| get a whole new acronym to go with it... Not just labelled
| GMO, yet again.
|
| It just confuses the dummies. And we live in democracies
| mostly, so you should be concerned about that.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| > No, I took the actual definition, and you just don't
| like it.
|
| You didn't take the actual definition. Look at the GMO
| wiki, and the first sentence defines the term in such a
| way to restrict it to organisms created with more modern
| techniques. When having conversations with people it's
| important to have a shared vocabulary with people. Having
| a different vocabulary creates miscommunications. It can
| be especially hard to assume best intent of people are
| using a non-standard definition because it is a technique
| purposefully done around scientific and academic jargon
| to achieve political ends.
| viswd wrote:
| More patented life and another food product I plan to avoid.
|
| I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and turned
| off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am.
| kmlx wrote:
| > I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and
| turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I
| am.
|
| quite the contrary. i think this should be celebrated as a
| great achievement and will happily eat it if it's delicious :P
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and
| turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I
| am.
|
| To me that sounds like being turned off by it containing
| dihydrogen monoxide. That is kind of a shame because the
| "patented life" angle is a real, serious problem worth
| attention but bundling it with shallow/trivial criticism like
| "turned off" (it literally tastes the same) makes it easy to
| dismiss.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| Not in the least. What's so disgusting about it? Totally
| concerned about "patented life" however.
| awb wrote:
| Price tends to be a big persuader.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the
| idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am.
|
| And yet people seem to be interested in lab-produced meat
| alternatives that use synthetic blood-like formula to make it
| taste like actual meat?
| ticviking wrote:
| Most meat alternatives sit on the shelves around here _even_
| when we have people stocking up for severe weather and there
| 's nothing else left.
| rtpg wrote:
| Right because of the idea that you can look at lab produced
| meat and feel like there is basically no suffering involved.
| UltimateFloofy wrote:
| okja
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I don't want to argue you should be vegetarian, but I hope at
| least people might consider eating _much less_ meat. I'm trying
| to save it for special occasions. It's not always possible, but I
| try and do my best.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m...
| tengbretson wrote:
| On the other hand, even if you want to regularly eat meat,
| between public land hunting and raising rabbits and chickens,
| the ability to take the production of the meat you eat into
| your own hands is a lot more accessible than you might think.
| Even if you live in an urban setting.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| Yes 100%. Raising 52 chickens for 1 chicken per week per year
| takes about 8 weeks start to finish and doesn't take much
| space at all.
|
| Rabbits are pound for pound the most efficient meat to raise.
| colordrops wrote:
| I do want to argue that you should be vegan. The meat industry
| is very cruel to animals, and it is nearly impossible to source
| truly "cruelty free" meat despite marketing saying otherwise.
| Dairy is far worse, with cows kept in small cages, constantly
| impregnated to keep producing milk, their calves pulled away
| from them and slaughtered for veal. Eggs are also horrible,
| with egg chickens living miserable lives, even "free range"
| ones, and the male chicks being culled by being thrown into a
| grinder.
|
| Furthermore, water usage, water table pollution, and
| greenhouses gasses from animal husbandry are a significant
| chunk of the pie when it comes to climate change.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > with cows kept in small cages
|
| I don't think this is common practice. My dairy knowledge is
| somewhat dated, but they they're usually kept in large
| corrals (possibly crowded) with many other cows.
| wyre wrote:
| They have to keep the cow in a cage or else she will look
| for her offspring.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| No, they're not "kept in cages".
|
| You may be thinking of the stanchions they're put into
| for milking, but they're only put in those during the
| actual milking process, which only takes a few minutes
| with modern milking machinery.
|
| Usually they're fed something tasty while being milked...
| makes it easier to get them to go into the dairy barn.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| That's a valid position. However the reality many people I've
| found will be more open to eating less meat than going full
| vegan. If in the end you reduce meat consumption, it's a win
| wincy wrote:
| The happiest times in my life and the healthiest I've ever
| been are always when I eat mostly meat and very little of
| anything else.
|
| I don't care about the emotions of animals at all, and never
| will. I purposely show my daughter videos of how to slaughter
| farm animals to try to make sure she has a full understanding
| of what's happening so she doesn't one day realize what
| "pork" or "beef" means and becomes vegan. Her favorite food
| by far is steak.
|
| I'm all for others reducing their consumption as hopefully
| that'll drop prices so I can eat more meat and feed my
| children more meat. Which is the only actual end result
| people who advocate cutting meat consumption will ever
| achieve.
| colordrops wrote:
| Considering that you have no empathy for other living
| beings, you should look into Elwood organic meats for you
| and your children:
|
| https://www.elwooddogmeat.com/
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't care (much) about the emotions of animals either,
| but I also 1) don't have a lust to make them suffer and 2)
| think the farming of meat is destructive to the
| environment. If there are tasty, cheap, and nutritious
| substitutes for meat, I'd gladly eat them instead.
| marliechiller wrote:
| > I don't care about the emotions of animals at all
|
| I hate to be the one to break this to you, but humans are
| animals mate
| gruez wrote:
| >I'm all for others reducing their consumption as hopefully
| that'll drop prices so I can eat more meat and feed my
| children more meat
|
| You realize that to an extent, the reason why meat is cheap
| is because of economy of scale and government subsidies,
| both of which depend on significant/majority of the
| population to be meat eaters to exist?
| wormer wrote:
| So you desensitize her early to it before she gets a chance
| to be old enough to think about the consequences of her
| actions? Ok.
| [deleted]
| selfsimilar wrote:
| > I don't care about the emotions of animals at all, and
| never will.
|
| This comes across as proudly sociopathic. The line between
| the human animal and any other is arbitrary and blurry and
| about to get much more so. I think it's healthy to
| understand your own body and recognize the importance meat
| has in your diet, and if that comes at the cost of the
| suffering of animals, that might be a price you're willing
| to pay. But to lump all animal suffering together as
| ignorable is really a red flag for an empathy deficit that
| is worth examining.
| coolso wrote:
| > I do want to argue that you should be vegan.
|
| Tried it (by my own suggestion) as a supportive boyfriend for
| a week. Absolutely not. The food tastes awful and is so
| unfulfilling as well. Every single bit of it. Nice boutique
| vegan restaurants, homemade vegan, following highly rated
| recipes online, "you can't even tell it's vegan!!"
| alternatives from the store.
|
| All of it absolutely gross and of questionable nutritional
| value, both overall and to men's health especially but also
| women. I finally discovered, for example, the source of my
| then-girlfriend's bouts of faintness and nausea: her vegan
| diet. Supplementing with vitamins improved things overnight.
| But something feels very, very wrong about that.
|
| There's also the type of person that tends to be vegan. I'm
| sorry but when the scene is filled with people who believe
| veganism, male feminism, effeminate traits, inherent weakness
| due to diet, and voting for Bernie is a personality trait, I
| don't walk... I run.
| belorn wrote:
| I want to argue that you should neither eat meat or an
| vegetarian diet, especially if either is produced through
| artificial fertilizers. As an Baltic ocean diver I am almost
| daily reminded of the destructiveness caused by farming, and
| I continuously witness the horror of asphyxia when low oxygen
| water get flown near the areas I dive, and when the visible-
| from-space algae bloom occurs. Artificial fertilizers is such
| a huge problem that practically every single fresh water lake
| in Europe is considered damaged by eutrophication. Sourcing
| food free of that is a major step to reducing ones personal
| climate footprint.
|
| Eggs are actually great if you have your own flock of
| chickens. They work almost for free in keeping grass down
| without requiring fossil fuels or complex machinery. They are
| almost perfect in handling food waste, and they can reduce
| harmful insects and weed without using any herbicide or
| pesticide. For insects they are likely less cruel than
| poison, and do not spread the poison to bees or birds. They
| also fertilizer the garden in a very natural way. A fairly
| small flock can easily maintain the need of eggs for a small
| family, often producing so much that you want to give it away
| to friends and relatives.
|
| A bit of an anecdotal but when the natural gas prices went up
| after Russian invasion of Ukraine, one food product that got
| hit hard was fresh tomatoes. Farming them during off-season
| is very energy intensive and so require a lot of electricity,
| which in most countries mean a lot of fossil fuel. Even if
| you use renewables, that is energy that would otherwise go to
| to displace fossil fuel. It is indirect, but fresh tomatoes
| is right now connected with fossil fuel and war. Meat is also
| effected, but analysts seem to argue that people can easier
| switch over to farm more animal feed than they can fix the
| energy dependence on Russian fossil fuels. People could stop
| eating fresh vegetables when its off season...
| nickstinemates wrote:
| Grow your own meat or buy direct from someone who does
| [deleted]
| prepend wrote:
| I'd like to argue for eating healthy and sustainably produced
| animal protein.
|
| Commercial meat is really bad for the environment, but you
| don't have to eat that.
|
| Animals are evolved to make the most of vegetables that humans
| can't eat. There are sustainable sources that we can use to eat
| beef, pork, chicken, lamb, etc.
|
| I try and do my best by eating local sources that I know are
| well produced. I don't hunt, but would one day like to.
|
| https://www.sacredcow.info/ Is a decent source of info on this.
| sweetheart wrote:
| Unnecessary violence that is sustainable is still unnecessary
| violence. You don't need to eat any animals to thrive, so
| choosing to do so is simply choosing to induce suffering for
| ephemeral, meaningless pleasure.
| yesco wrote:
| Your appeal to emotion is unconvincing
| sweetheart wrote:
| Yeah it's sad how few people are able to grasp the simple
| concept that we ought to avoid unnecessary suffering,
| regardless of species.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| That's because it's a logical appeal. The argument is:
| Eating meat causes suffering to the animal. Eating meat
| is unnecessary for a human life. Eating meat causes
| unnecessary suffering.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Eating meat is unnecessary for a human life
|
| There are a lot of things that are "unnecessary for human
| life", such as using electricity.
|
| Making electricity harms the environment, causing
| suffering.
|
| Therefore, you should stop using your computer.
|
| Right?
| yesco wrote:
| Okay then your "logical appeal" is unconvincing, I
| disagree that eating meat is uneccessary.
| twojacobtwo wrote:
| I believe a logical implication of your 'argument' is
| that you think vegans don't exist. Is that really the
| case?
| yesco wrote:
| I believe vegan diets are detrimental to health, I
| consider being healthy necessary for human life. I
| realize vegans like to imply the opposite but not only
| has the evidence been unconvincing, but I frankly have
| never met a healthy looking vegan in real life.
|
| Not that any actual evidence or true rational argument
| has been provided by such parties in this comment chain.
| Appealing to emotion and agressively stating what you
| want to be true are simply not conductive to a productive
| argument.
| sweetheart wrote:
| How would you know if someone you met is a healthy
| vegan?...
| sweetheart wrote:
| You disagree with every major nutritional and dietetic
| institute around the world. Google it.
| yesco wrote:
| No, provide me the sources if you want to use them as a
| part of your argument.
| sweetheart wrote:
| Okay.
|
| https://youaretheirvoice.com/pages/the-clear-consensus
|
| Enjoy.
| cercatrova wrote:
| In an argument, if you're trying to convince the other
| person to support your beliefs, you wouldn't use clearly
| biased sources like you did here. I have no argument with
| you specifically but just pointing it out for the future
| that people will dismiss any biased sources you give
| them, which is probably not what you want the outcome to
| be in an argumentative fashion.
| sweetheart wrote:
| You mean Kaiser Permanente? And Harvard Medical School?
| And The American Institute for Cancer Research? And the
| British Dietetic Association? And the Mayo Clinic?
|
| What biases are you talking about?
| cercatrova wrote:
| The site you linked is affiliated with vegan causes, is
| it not? Just because the sources are from those
| institutions does not mean they aren't cherry picked for
| that specific cause. I can also quote journals with
| conclusions justifying omnivorous consumption as well [0]
| but those would be just as cherry picked.
|
| [0] https://sapienjournal.org/people-who-eat-meat-
| experience-low...
| sweetheart wrote:
| Mate, the website is just a collection of links to the
| actual research. I'm being asked for sources, I give tons
| of very credible sources, and your retort is to just
| claim that now they are cherry picked?
|
| Sure, we can ALWAYS find a source that supports whatever
| claim we want to make. But let's look at the general
| scientific consensus.
|
| The overwhelming majority of research indicates that
| veganism is perfectly healthy. That's what I linked! Your
| single journalistic summary of summary about non-causal
| associations between meat eating and depression don't
| undo the general scientific consensus.
| schrodinger wrote:
| You can't just disagree with a fact. There are plenty of
| examples of people who live normal life spans without
| eating meat.
| yesco wrote:
| Provide them then, real hard evidence that lifespans are
| unaffected by the average person with a vegan diet.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Animals die violently regardless of human actions. If you
| want to prevent violent, painful deaths, you should be
| going around the forest euthanizing animals.
| sweetheart wrote:
| How do you think that will prevent horrible deaths? Will
| the animals that need to hunt and eat prey suddenly not
| be hungry?
| radu_floricica wrote:
| I never found a satisfactory answer to this question: if we
| stop eating domestic animals, they won't frolic forever in
| an idyllic wilderness - they'll just stop existing,
| completely. Do you prefer them not existing, to being eaten
| by people?
|
| And once you've answered - how would you feel about hyper
| advanced aliens coming to our corner of the universe and
| being horrified of all the pain and misery on earth, with a
| finger on a button that'll painlessly stop us from
| existing.
| sweetheart wrote:
| Yeah we should stop breeding animals into existence only
| to live short and unimaginably cruel lives. They won't go
| extinct though, if that's what you mean. There will
| always be cows and chickens and pigs. Just far far fewer.
|
| The huge difference between your hypothetical and reality
| is that the aliens are actively committing genocide and
| im merely a proponent of not forcefully impregnating more
| animals to get them pregnant so I can profit off them.
|
| If human beings were kept in conditions like those we
| find animals and at the same scale, and the aliens came
| and were horrified then I'd beg them to press the button
| that stops humans from being raped and impregnated at
| mass scale solely for the babies to be processed.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I want to know what exactly was changed to help them "endure
| climate change" because to me it sounds like bullshit designed to
| create a proprietary cow genome with a pretty story to sell it.
| microjim wrote:
| That information, alongside a comparison photo, is available in
| the first (very short) paragraph. The modification is to have
| them grow much shorter hair in order to tolerate heat better.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| I dont mean to sound condescending here, but it would have
| taken you 2-5 seconds to find the answer to your question. This
| comment is an example of bad internet discourse.
|
| However! I agree that the who-owns-the-genes question is
| interesting.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Also 'endure climate change' is so grossly ironic.
|
| Instead of factoring in the costs of our actions, engineer ways
| to lower price and feed more demand -> and thus creating more
| methane, forest destruction, emissions from feed, huge waste of
| water, and all the gas shipping it a continent away.
|
| If people won't reduce their beef consumption, maybe we can
| crispr out some methane (seems not possible just based on
| chemistry but who knows?). Or maybe just let the real price
| with externalities lower consumption.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The methane isn't from the cows, it is from the bacteria in
| their gut. It can be greatly reduced with supplemental
| feeding that changes the microbiome
| Eduard wrote:
| The methane isn't from the bacteria, it is from their food.
|
| If the inefficient cow/bacteria processing step is skipped,
| the whole production pipeline is greatly more climate-
| friendly.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| More specifically, it is a waste product from bacteria
| digesting the food.
|
| The food doesn't turn to methane without the bacteria.
|
| https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104
| -01...
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| But genes to appear to modulate gut microbiota
| composition on other animals, so it's not impossible that
| there is some genetic modification (to cattle) that would
| have the desired effect.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| oh, I totally agree that there could be some design space
| around this.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Another alternative is GMO feed that contain some of the
| same nutrients as seaweed. Gene transfer might be easier
| between seaweed and feed then seaweed and cow
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Very cool to see the knowledge of guy/microbiome growing.
|
| I wonder if that means it would actually be possible, more
| likely I would guess to modify the corn or whatever gross
| food we feed most cows.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I've read a lot about this, but is it being done at any
| scale? And how much extra does it cost?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not that I am aware of, but I am far from an expert in
| the area.
|
| This paper[1] suggests it would cost about ~20 cents per
| lb of beef
|
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jour
| nal...
| 0des wrote:
| This might be an unpopular opinion here but if this puts more
| beef on the table or at a lesser price, bring it on. I love beef.
| I want more people to have access to good quality beef at a
| competitive price. The pandemic for me saw meat in general double
| in price on average. I can't in good faith consume corn,
| tomatoes, tobacco, or even broccoli while saying I don't support
| GMO. It is not the same but it also is not an entirely unrelated
| concept. As an engineer we are taught to analyze and overcome and
| to me this is nothing different.
| sschueller wrote:
| But the race to the bottom has shown that quality goes out the
| window. People will eat garbage if it's cheap and companies
| will cut any corners they can to get the price down.
|
| Corn fed factory meat doesn't taste at all the same as grass
| fed organic free-range.
|
| I'd rather pay quadruple for a piece of meat and only eat it
| once a week than the crap we get for cheap every day.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Moves like this are not about improving the general conditions
| of the masses.
|
| Please let's stop being so naive.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| if you have literally no concern about the suffering of
| animals, then it's a good thing. If you think that the
| suffering of animals outweighs people's _preferences_ (not
| needs, you can thrive on a vegetarian diet) then this is
| absolutely not good. I 'm happy to see high prices for beef,
| and would be happy if everyone was priced out of eating it. As
| second best, I'd be happy if people at least considered the
| suffering that went into their food production and chose to
| reduce that consumption even if they feel they cannot eliminate
| it.
| kmlx wrote:
| > you can thrive on a vegetarian diet
|
| as long as you take vitamins B12, D and some iron, you should
| be fine.
|
| but having been meat eaters for 2.4 million years will be
| hard to shake off.
|
| if anything eating beef will increase in the future as more
| and more people rise to the "middle class". we should
| probably take this into consideration and it's implications,
| no matter how you feel about the subject.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| People bring this up, but like, is eating dog okay? Even if
| you say yes, is factory farming them okay? Is eating human
| okay? No - just because we may have had meat in our diet
| for millions of years doesn't mean we have to choose the
| most advanced life to factory farm and eat. We certainly
| have more reservations against eating certain kinds of meat
| than can be explained purely from an evolutionary
| perspective - and that aspect should be expanded to cover
| more species. Plenty of Westerners will be outraged when
| the Japanese slaughter a whale but seem fine with the
| _immense_ suffering in the farms in their own country. I
| don 't think this can be reconciled if people knew just
| what actually went on.
|
| I'll note that personally I don't shame people for eating
| meat - that's just not a nice way to live and leads to
| immense resentment. I do think people are making the wrong
| choice here though.
| triyambakam wrote:
| I felt sad seeing the cows in the featured article :( Friends
| not food.
| 0des wrote:
| I respect your choice, and hope some day the work we see here
| can open doors to a lab grown alternative that eliminates the
| suffering so that you also can experience the joy of a
| ribeye, bone-in with a compound butter and runny egg.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I also eat meat, so not going to play the saint here.
|
| But it seems you have absolutely no remorse of what happens
| to those animals that end up on your plate. Or you do and
| try to cover it up by playing the tough guy.
|
| I try to cut back on meat as much as I can. I also enjoy
| some ribs, but I don't eat meat every day. And when I do, I
| try to stick with fish or poultry.
|
| I suggest you watch some slaughterhouse videos, so you know
| what those animals have to go through to end up as tasty
| meat on your plate:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTenibfTutI . Please watch
| it all up until the end.
|
| If you still have no remorse, you are for sure a
| psychopath.
| 0des wrote:
| A psychopath? Who's the tough guy?
| koonsolo wrote:
| So which one is it? Are you just PLAYING the role of a
| tough guy, or do you really have no remorse when watching
| that video?
| matchbok wrote:
| They are animals. Do you weep for the bugs and rabbits
| that are killed when wheat is harvested?
| koonsolo wrote:
| They probably didn't live in a box about the size of
| their own body their entire life.
| naoqj wrote:
| That video is slowed down in the most shocking moments to
| make it look like the suffering of the animals lasts for
| longer.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Ok, fair enough. Can you provide a video that is more
| realistic then?
| naoqj wrote:
| Watching videos of slaughterhouses is not one of my
| hobbies so I don't know of any other video like that.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Yeah, probably because they're all gruesome, slowed down
| or not.
| jlokier wrote:
| Acute suffering and fear tends to last longer,
| subjectively, for humans. Psychological time stretches.
| Perhaps slowing it down is a more accurate portrayal of
| the animal's experience than not doing so.
| landa wrote:
| You're 100% right about this. What's going on right now with
| mass slaughter of animals will hopefully end one day soon and
| be looked back on as the darkest time in the Earth's history.
| Knufen wrote:
| This is probably gonna sound a bit dystopian, but would you
| eat beef if we eliminated suffering with CRISPR? I don't get
| to talk to a lot of vegetarians/vegans so honest question.
| imtringued wrote:
| Sorry, nobody is going to eat your meat eggs :P
| Timwi wrote:
| I would, but I think the premise is unrealistic. The term
| "suffering" itself is pretty vague and undefined. You might
| be thinking of just removing pain receptors in the brain or
| something, but there are many more sources of suffering
| than just pain.
| lopis wrote:
| If you invent an animal that is designed to grow muscle
| tissue for harvesting and isn't sentient nor suffers,
| you've solved lab meat, in an organic container. While many
| veg _ns grew a distaste for meat, that would indeed satisfy
| the vegan principle of eliminating suffering._
|
| However, the reason farm animals are so cheap is because
| they are conscious, autonomous meat machines that you can
| order around easily.
|
| * You do enter into another question here about whether
| brain dead or deeply disabled people are ethical to be
| eaten. Most people would say no.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I think your latter point is a bit different to the topic
| at hand.
|
| Cannibalism isn't widely seen as distasteful because of
| the suffering involved, but because you're eating
| _people_.
|
| Maybe a better question would be around eating dog,
| dolphin or to a lesser extent, horse meat.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Or the inverse: turning the brain dead into animal feed
| or fertilizer.
|
| Closer to home: donating them to research/organ donation
| _before_ they formally die.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| I don't know. My moral intitutions and reasoning fall apart
| if you remove suffering from the equation. By that logic it
| would also be okay to farm and eat humans if we eliminated
| their ability to suffer using CRISPR. What would you think
| of that? I don't even know where to start.
| genousti wrote:
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| That'd be an okay but irrelevant to meat eating point if
| I was against supply chain transparency and stopping
| slavery. I am very much happy to see anyone who has
| enslaved anyone going to prison for the rest of their
| life though, and I'm very happy for companies to find
| alternative sources to warlords and corrupt banana
| republics.
| ben_w wrote:
| First, poor argument: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
|
| Second, Apple is actually trying to make sure that
| doesn't happen: https://www.apple.com/supplier-
| responsibility/pdf/Apple-Comb...
| lopis wrote:
| > Yet u write this probably on an iphone or whatever
| computer where rate minerals where harvested by slaves
| who died doing so.
|
| This is the lowest effort meme argument commonly found in
| any animal rights discussions.
|
| Yes there are problems in the world. My choice of phone
| makes barely any difference ethically; thus I must leave
| society behind, lest im banned from arguing about
| anything at all? No, you evaluate what you have power
| over and act accordingly. I have access to all my
| nutrition in plat based food, so that's what I eat. I can
| afford and am able to use a Fairphone, so I do that.
| Defeatist comments like yours don't drive discussion nor
| help anyone, but those too lazy or accommodated to re-
| evaluate their impact on the world.
| thunderbong wrote:
| We weep for the blood of a bird, but not for the blood of a
| fish. Blessed are those who have voice. - Mamoru Oshii
| pessimizer wrote:
| Lots of people don't eat fish.
| DeWilde wrote:
| > not needs, you can thrive on a vegetarian diet
|
| Not true for everyone. I have a specific health issue and to
| ingest the necessary daily intake of proteins solely through
| non-meat source would mean ingesting a lot more carbs that I
| can handle for a day.
|
| Also explain how would CRISPR increase the suffering of
| animals?
| Timwi wrote:
| I don't think they were claiming that it increases
| suffering. But it doesn't decrease it either. We should at
| least decrease suffering, or ideally, eliminate it. CRISPR
| does not constitute any progress in that regard. If
| anything, it gives more people more excuses to continue
| supporting the suffering.
| DeWilde wrote:
| That is correct. Ideally we will move to lab grown meat
| or just lab grown edibles/drinkables that contain all the
| nutrients you need and you get to choose the ratio of
| nutrients for each meal.
| Spivak wrote:
| My vegan protein powder is 20g protein for 2g carbs 2g
| fiber so it's definitely possible.
| matchbok wrote:
| The virtue signaling is strong here. Humans have been eating
| animals forever. It played a large part in our evolution.
| It's a normal part of life. Wringing hands over it helps
| nobody.
| throwaway73838 wrote:
| I agree. I think eating meat is abhorrent, and genetically
| mutilating animals even more so. Selective breeding is one
| thing, but this opens the doors to all kinds of 'design gene'
| questions that I don't think the world is ready for, or ever
| should be.
| furstenheim wrote:
| How is selective breeding good? There are dog breeds that
| have respiratory problems all their lives. CRISPR should
| open the door to genetic improvements without genetic
| diversity loss
| simulate-me wrote:
| The breathing issues found in certain breeds of dogs
| aren't from diversity loss. Rather, the breathing issues
| are caused by the traits being bred for. Pugs, for
| instance, are bred to have small noses, so small that
| they restrict airflow. CRISPR could exacerbate the desire
| of breeders to express physical characteristics in dogs
| without considerations for the impact of those changes on
| the well-being of the dog.
| amelius wrote:
| Why is this for the FDA to decide, not the electorate?
|
| We've had discussions about abortion for ages, yet here the FDA
| okays a human intervention just like that?
| rocqua wrote:
| This is about suitability of meat as food. That falls squarely
| within the purview of the FDA.
|
| Whether this is allowed to do to animals is not determined by
| the FDA. I am not sure what law does cover this.
| imtringued wrote:
| I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the
| authorization of a mega corporation.
|
| Everyone loves talking about how their genetic engineering
| technique is the best and that at worst it is only as bad as
| selective breeding yet they completely dismiss the fact that you
| cannot apply selective breeding on a lot of these GMOs.
| gruez wrote:
| > I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the
| authorization of a mega corporation.
|
| What's the concern here? That violating the reproductive rights
| of livestock is bad?
| jdrc wrote:
| 'Not' disappointed by the amount of content-free opinion in these
| threads. Gell-mann amnesia starts to fade
| ksec wrote:
| From the 12+ Years on HN I know this is an unpopular opinion.
|
| I dont like GMO / Genome-edited cattle / food or crops. Even if
| it could theoretically occur through a natural breeding process.
| You can cross breed all you want. GMO is not cross breed as many
| on HN somehow believes last time we had this discussions. You can
| do Data Science and other controlled environment in providing
| better yield as in EUR ( Or specifically the Dutch ). And we may
| soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free as selling
| point, as US likes to do with Antibiotic Free and Growth Hormones
| free labels. Part of the reason why EU has never been keen on US
| Beef import.
|
| To add some other context, US Beef export rank third in export
| volume and first or second in export revenue.
| Thorrez wrote:
| >And we may soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free
| as selling point
|
| A lot of food I buy has labels saying GMO-free on it. Although
| maybe that's just to distinguish from GMO plants currently.
| klondike_ wrote:
| There are actually very few GMO crops available commercially.
| Mostly corn and wheat. The "No GMO" label is meaningless for
| most products that don't use these ingredients
| ksec wrote:
| And potatoes.
| ben_w wrote:
| Most of the hard cheese I eat was processed with
| genetically modified bacterial rennet, and would otherwise
| not be vegetarian.
| exhilaration wrote:
| Yup. I would say at this point 99% of the cheese consumed
| by Americans is produced with GMO bacterial rennet. I've
| contacted maybe a dozen cheese producers and they've told
| me the same thing. It's not just about lower cost, but
| that is the biggest factor, one producer told me it's
| also about bacterial rennet being much more consistent
| and predictable.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is no GMO wheat available. Lots of corn and a few.
| Others, but so far no wheet
| kickout wrote:
| Other have also commented, but this is mostly a marketing
| ploy. Non-GMO is not a regulated term and most things we eat
| have do not have a 'GMO' alternative.
| gruez wrote:
| >Non-GMO is not a regulated term and most things we eat
| have do not have a 'GMO' alternative.
|
| Source? A search turns up:
|
| https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/09/21/new-allowances-
| in...
| kickout wrote:
| Organic is the regulated term. Again, GMO is not a
| regulated term. The fact you see companies using it to
| try and extract a premium is the result of marketing, not
| a defined technical certification.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Further your assertion by discussing the real concern:
| uncertainty.
|
| It seems to take generations for health problems with novel
| products that humans ingest to materialize.
|
| We have millennia of experience with cross breeding, animal
| husbandry, etc.
|
| Why trust these salesmen of genetically modified organisms, the
| same gentlemen who gleefully introduce pesticides into the
| environment, when we _know_ that traditional hybrid crops and
| selectively-bred livestock provide ample nourishment?
|
| Is optimizing for per-acre yields at the risk hazard the
| environment and human health worthwhile?
| sokoloff wrote:
| That depends in large part on whether a world population of
| 8B can be fed at the lower per-acre yields.
|
| If the alternative is "everyone eats, but food is a little
| more expensive", that's OK. If the alternative is "billions
| live with insufficient food and 100s of millions die", then I
| think the balance of the risk equation shifts.
| rocqua wrote:
| To avoid malthusian traps we do need per-acre yields to be
| higher and higher. Increasing yields is not just about
| farmers profits, also about feeding the world.
|
| That does not mean it is a good idea to trade long term
| damage for short term yields. But yields are still important.
| imtringued wrote:
| >To avoid malthusian traps we do need per-acre yields to be
| higher and higher. Increasing yields is not just about
| farmers profits, also about feeding the world.
|
| This is illogical. The only places that experience
| excessive population growth are those that haven't
| developed their basic agricultural sectors and rely on
| labor intensive subsistence farming which means having
| children who work on your farm is not a drag on your
| household. The reason why those people do subsistence
| farming is actually quite ironic, because they cannot
| afford to run commercial farms as those would have to
| compete with hyper optimized western farms so instead every
| poor nation is forced to sell its raw resources and cash
| crops and then buy food from developed countries.
|
| You can't sustain a population on vanilla but since western
| and asian countries cannot compete on e.g. coffee or
| vanilla production in Madagascar that nation can use the
| proceeds to import rice. The problem isn't an inability to
| grow rice, after all, people do subsistence farming and
| live off it their entire life.
| epgui wrote:
| I'm a biochemist, and I'd feed GMOs to my kids all day if I had
| any. Or to my mom. They're totally fine.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Same here. Also a biochemist, I'm totally fine with GMO
| stuff. There's nothing wrong with it at all
| pueblito wrote:
| I'm a farmer. I vehemently disagree.
| prepend wrote:
| As a janitor I am vehemently ambivalent.
|
| Seriously though, biochemists seem to have more authority
| on this subject than a farmer. Some farmers study and are
| knowledgeable about genes and chemistry and whatnot. But
| without further information, just being a farmer doesn't
| give you much more insight on the safety of GMO.
| rincebrain wrote:
| I personally interpreted the GP and grand-GP commenter's
| statement as "there is nothing wrong from a health
| perspective about consuming GMO products", not "there is
| nothing wrong with the utterly bonkers legal convolutions
| surrounding GMO seed control".
| epgui wrote:
| This is exactly what I meant, thank you. (see: principle
| of generous interpretation)
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| So what's the problem with it?
|
| In my opinion, health-wise and biochemically its fine
|
| The patent situation, market capture, and change in
| biodiversity are issues secondary to the issues most are
| generally worried about when consuming and purchasing GMO
| foods and could be fixed with changes in law/regulation
| rather than having to do with whatever proteins the
| organism is expressing
| epgui wrote:
| Bingo.
| [deleted]
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| For me the idea that a company can claim intellectual
| property rights to a genome sounds pretty awful. To be fair,
| I don't know if that's a real threat or not, but I could
| totally see it happening.
| epgui wrote:
| Yeah I agree, but I also feel the same way about software
| patents.
|
| I think it's important to distinguish that objection from
| health scares, technophobia and such: imagine if the
| public's objections were targeted at the real problems
| instead, how much more productive it would be!
| codingdave wrote:
| Yes, but posting "They're totally fine" is hardly
| distinguishing those problems.
|
| If you are going to use your credentials to explain why
| you do not have a problem with GMOs, but then put in a
| blanket "Everything is fine" vibe... that doesn't do
| justice to the problems.
| epgui wrote:
| A biochemist isn't exactly the best positioned to talk
| about political or legal issues. Health risks, however,
| are what we know about.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| That gives me a pretty cynical idea: the companies
| pushing GMOs should start funding and supporting groups
| who are vocal about the claimed adverse health effects of
| GMOs. That opposition is easy to argue against in public
| debate, and the resulting noise conveniently drowns out
| the real problems. Controlled opposition I think it's
| called.
|
| Not surprisingly, I've learned about this concept from
| the Russian government.
| speed_spread wrote:
| I believe that's exactly what they are doing. They're
| drowning the big political issues of their model into the
| noise produced by the scientifically debatable issues.
| Ultimately, it's about bringing back up a feudal regime
| that can't be bypassed.
| gruez wrote:
| Sounds like poe's law? "wow these radical activists have
| some really extreme positions! could it be that these are
| people that sincerely hold extreme positions? nah they
| must be the 'controlled opposition' hired by the elites
| to bring 'back up a feudal regime that can't be
| bypassed'!"
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Well, how would you ever know? When there's profit to be
| made you shouldn't exclude the possibility.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Nothing so obvious. Yes, these people aren't hired or
| paid in any way, they are authentic in their positions.
| And they also get media attention because extremes bring
| clicks, rational political discourse is otherwise
| "boring". Power dynamics already regulates away most
| credible opposition so incumbents only have to nudge
| things here and there.
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| Are you commenting on the safety of GMO DNA structure, and
| long-term biology?
|
| Or are you approving the chemicals that are sprayed on GMOs
| because they can survive them?
| epgui wrote:
| I am commenting on GMOs and GMOs only, I am not commenting
| about the safety of chemicals. GMO products themselves are
| biosimilar/essentially-equivalent to non-GMOs.
|
| I think being opposed to the spraying of fields by whatever
| herbicide or pesticide is a legitimate position, but it's a
| distinct problem. Yes, I realize that they often come
| together, but that is not necessarily the case.
|
| You can easily have a GMO that has nothing to do with
| pesticide or herbicide resistance, in fact there are plenty
| of those, and they unfortunately all get lumped into the
| same category in public discourse.
|
| And even in the worst case, where a GMO's purpose is to be
| used alongside a herbicide such as glyphosate... It's not
| clear that the alternative is any better. In fact most
| other categories of herbicides are way more hazardous (note
| that I am not a herbicide expert, but I do know a thing or
| two about them). I don't want to defend any bad companies,
| and I don't know what the solution is, but one thing I know
| for sure: feeding everyone is actually super complicated.
| codingdave wrote:
| The problem with GMOs isn't the GMO itself - it is the
| practices that surround them. Patents, pesticides, and the
| resulting monoculture in large agricultural operations.
| epgui wrote:
| I will agree to that! But also every GMO is different, so
| IMO it makes no sense whatsoever for people to be "anti-
| GMO" in general, or even to have "GMO-free" labels on
| foods, but I would respect someone who was against a very
| specific use of GMO. And I do think it makes sense to have
| disclosure labels for products that use specific herbicides
| or pesticides.
|
| Unfortunately, regulation of this sort of thing, at least
| in Canada and the US, is a complete joke and a confusing
| mess that doesn't serve anyone's best interests.
| strainer wrote:
| Everything is totally fine until it bites hard enough to beat
| the marketing and legal campaigns run to promote and protect
| it. "Totally fine" is simply the orthodox professional
| position towards new potentially lucrative practices. Because
| it is a burden on the career opportunities to those who think
| otherwise.
|
| Putting cattle remains in cattle feed was fine until CJD was
| discovered, mass producing CFCs was fine until the chemisty
| of the ozone damage was understood. More chemists assured
| leaded petrol was fine and the few who complained were
| attacked... this list is huge. Its totally fine to mass
| produce plastics still. So to assure the generally well
| informed about the safety and wisdom of a technological
| proposition - you would need to be able to carry more detail
| than just adding 'I am a related professional - this is fine'
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| This is a pretty poor form of argument. You can't just make
| blanket statements like this without evidence.
|
| What evidence do you have that our understanding of CRISPR
| and genetic modification today is on par of our
| understanding of CFCs and CJD in the 20th century?
|
| It's like saying that we shouldn't release any new drugs
| because of the thalidomide catastrophe.
| strainer wrote:
| I did _reply_ to a blanket statement based on a bare
| claim of professional expertise - and with examples to
| plentiful historical evidence of premature confidences in
| technological understanding. There is no evidence that
| this fallibility has not carried into this century.
|
| My argument was not like saying "we should never do
| anything like this because of past grave accidents in
| comparable novel products and practices" It was to be
| measured and wary of bare professional and institutional
| assurances.
|
| Regarding the characteristics of plants and animals that
| we should feed to our children and mass rear in our
| environment - I am of the mind that the characteristics
| should be as well evidenced by the long history of life
| as we can afford.
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| > premature confidences in technological understanding
|
| CRISPR-Cas9 (the method used here) was first successfully
| used seven years ago. According to the article, the meat
| may go to market in two years pending a safety review. So
| that's nine years from lab to table. How soon is too
| soon? What makes you think doing it now would be
| premature as opposed to ten years from now?
|
| > It was to be measured and wary of bare professional and
| institutional assurances.
|
| From where would you like to get assurances? Do you have
| to conduct the study yourself?
|
| > Regarding the characteristics of plants and animals
| that we should feed to our children and mass rear in our
| environment - I am of the mind that the characteristics
| should be as well evidenced by the long history of life
| as we can afford.
|
| That's all well and good till climate change reduces
| arable land and we have to extract as much as we can from
| the remainder.
| epgui wrote:
| > I am of the mind that [...]
|
| Which is totally fine, but unfortunately that position is
| neither informed by any specific evidence, nor informed
| by a principled understanding of the technology in
| question (which is where deferral to expertise can come
| in handy).
|
| You should note that there's a difference between an
| appeal to authority fallacy, and deferral to expertise,
| and while the former is fatal to any _logical argument_ ,
| the latter is an entirely appropriate and useful
| _heuristic_ :
| https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-
| logic-...
| Pigalowda wrote:
| So he needs to provide proof but you don't? It's fine for
| you to use a slippery slope argument and straw man combined
| but he needs citations? Interesting.
| epgui wrote:
| I happen to be a biochemist by training (12 years of
| postsecondary including cancer research for my MSc) who is
| completely outside the field. I'm working as a software
| engineer for non-bio-related companies. I have no intention
| of going back to pipetting liquids around all day.
|
| So yeah, for what it's worth, zero potential conflict of
| interest whatsoever.
| vanattab wrote:
| I am not a big fan of idea of GMO beef ether, not because I
| fear it will be dangerous but because I fear it will taste like
| crap and be unhealthy for the cows. Today they will make the
| cows hair shorter so they stay cooler for when they edit them
| tomorrow to grow an extra couple of hundred pounds of rapidly
| grown muscle.
| gruez wrote:
| > because I fear it will taste like crap
|
| OTOH I can plausibility imagine engineering to improve
| marbling for instance.
|
| > and be unhealthy for the cows
|
| Todays cows are already really unhealthy because of feedlots.
| klondike_ wrote:
| You don't provide any argument for why you dislike GMO food
| here. What bothers you so much about GMO food?
|
| The fact is that humans have been breeding plants and animals
| to increase efficiency and palatability for thousands of years,
| and GMO is the next technological step.
| yucky wrote:
| Do companies like Monsanto hold patents on their GMO products
| and techniques?
|
| Because trusting a company (like Monsanto for instance) to
| play nice with their patents as it relates to our food supply
| is a non-starter.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Large corporations across many industries have a history of
| identifying the harm from their products, hiding the
| studies, and then lobbying in the opposite direction of the
| findings. In short, intentional criminal behavior, shielded
| by regulators--who they control indirectly.
| driverdan wrote:
| The issue of patents is separate from the issue of GMO
| technology.
| yucky wrote:
| Well the GMO technology gets patented, and patents are
| routinely abused. That is unacceptable for our food
| sources.
| gruez wrote:
| If they go rogue with their patent portfolio, you're still
| free to go back to non-GMO varieties, leaving you no worse
| off than before.
| jlokier wrote:
| That might not apply to Monsanto.
|
| Monsanto is infamous for contaminating non-GMO crops on
| neighbour farms then suing the neighbour for growing the
| GMO variety, and for "drift" of their special herbicide
| which happens to destroy neighbour farm crops - for which
| the only solution is, you guessed it, buy Monsanto GMO
| varieties to grow instead of the non-GMO varieties you
| wanted to grow.
| gruez wrote:
| >Monsanto is infamous for contaminating non-GMO crops on
| neighbour farms then suing the neighbour for growing the
| GMO variety, and for "drift" of their special herbicide
| which happens to destroy neighbour farm crops - for which
| the only solution is, you guessed it, buy Monsanto GMO
| varieties to grow instead of the non-GMO varieties you
| wanted to grow.
|
| 1. in the context of this discussion (ie. GMO cows) this
| is basically a non-issue. GMO sperm isn't going to
| "drift" from one pasture to another.
|
| 2. Can you substantiate that claim? The Wikipedia article
| lists a bunch of cases where the farmers were
| intentionally trying to breed monsanto seeds, which is
| different than the narrative you presented, which imply
| farmers being sued for accidental contamination.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#As_pla
| int...
| jlokier wrote:
| On the first claim, looks like you're right and I learned
| something. It is interesting to see the Canada Supreme
| Court were split 5-4 on the Schmeiser decision and did
| not award any damages to Monsanto, (but that doesn't mean
| they believed the second year of crop growth was by
| accidental contamination).
|
| On the second claim, it's briefly described in Wikipedia
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Dicam
| ba). The second claim isn't about GMO spreading directly,
| but rather about how you may have no choice but to grow
| the GMO variety (and pay for it, and lose revenue if you
| were growing something more profitable) when in the
| neighbourhood of other farms growing it, which has a
| similar practical effect on individual farmers regarding
| "you're still free to go back to non-GMO varieties".
|
| Lengthier article here
| (https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/12/04/buy-it-or-
| else-ins...) "'Buy it or else': Inside Monsanto and
| BASF's moves to force dicamba on farmers" [...] [...]
| "His neighbors who spray dicamba are frustrated with him,
| he said. There's an easy solution to avoid damage, they
| tell him: Buy Monsanto's seeds" [...] "As the damage has
| continued, he said, more and more of his clients are
| "feeling bullied into" buying the dicamba-tolerant crops.
| Others tell him, they have to spray dicamba or else they
| can't control the weeds."
| gruez wrote:
| >On the second claim, it's briefly described in Wikipedia
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Dicam
| ba). The second claim isn't about GMO spreading directly,
| but rather about how you may have no choice but to grow
| the GMO variety (and pay for it, and lose revenue if you
| were growing something more profitable) when in the
| neighbourhood of other farms growing it, which has a
| similar practical effect on individual farmers regarding
| "you're still free to go back to non-GMO varieties".
|
| >Lengthier article here
| (https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/12/04/buy-it-or-
| else-ins...) "'Buy it or else': Inside Monsanto and
| BASF's moves to force dicamba on farmers" [...] [...]
| "His neighbors who spray dicamba are frustrated with him,
| he said. There's an easy solution to avoid damage, they
| tell him: Buy Monsanto's seeds" [...] "As the damage has
| continued, he said, more and more of his clients are
| "feeling bullied into" buying the dicamba-tolerant crops.
| Others tell him, they have to spray dicamba or else they
| can't control the weeds."
|
| I agree that this situation is bad and monsanto was in
| the wrong. However, I don't agree with the
| characterization of this as a GMO problem. The problem as
| I see it is that one party (the farmer spraying dicamba)
| is harming another party (the farmer that's not using
| monsanto seeds). In other words, a tort. This is
| something that the legal system protects against, and the
| article mentions that the injured farmer has won a
| lawsuit, so it seems like everything's working as
| intended. Blaming it on GMO doesn't really make sense. If
| GMOs weren't involved, and the pesticides merely poisoned
| the drinking water, that wouldn't magically make the
| situation okay.
| ticviking wrote:
| Til the GMO bull gets into your heifer's pen, or onto
| your land for a few days.
|
| There used to be range wars over "strange breeds" much
| less gene-edited breeds where I grew up, where the cows
| still largely wander federal land and get rounded up
| seasonally.
| Taywee wrote:
| You have been misled by Food Inc. I was as well. Reading
| up on the case and finding out how disingenuous it was
| really made me angry.
| [deleted]
| kickout wrote:
| They play about as nice as Microsoft and Google and other
| big tech on protecting patents. Also, Monsanto was
| purchased by Bayer (a German company).
| foobiekr wrote:
| Start by asking yourself how humans have established that a
| given food, genetically engineered or not, is long-term safe?
| taneq wrote:
| We're pretty terrible at it, honestly. Look at half the
| crap we eat currently, I wouldn't describe much of it as
| "long-term safe."
| foobiekr wrote:
| Yes. So we need to be careful about making it worse.
| deschutes wrote:
| Ok. Show me something that would be a food but for "delayed
| bad things". Like, delayed by decades or even years. Just
| so we're clear, nutritional deficiencies aren't of any
| interest.
|
| As far as I'm aware this angle is FUD.
|
| If we want to apply the same standard to pesticides I'm not
| sure any high ground exists. That said, whatever effect
| they have on mortality appears to be miniscule given the
| trends over the last century.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Transfats fit this perfectly.
| colordrops wrote:
| The genetic changes you get with direct gene manipulation are
| qualitatively different from those that arise through
| artificial selection. You won't get fish or tobacco genes in
| a cow from selectivd breeding. To constantly repeat this
| trope and claim that they are the same is intellectually
| dishonest.
| baremetal wrote:
| unintended consequences are what i dont like about GMO food
| mping wrote:
| Unknown unknowns
| kleene_op wrote:
| There will always be unknown unknowns, whatever the subject
| at hand. This is not specific to GMOs and certainly not a
| good argument against them.
| Timwi wrote:
| Why are you not worried about the unknown unknowns in
| literally any other area? Like, using microwave ovens,
| having TV broadcast signals, or wearing silk?
|
| Personally I'm reasonably confident that any significant
| adverse health effect would have been found by experiments
| by now, so Bayesian reasoning tells me any unknowns that
| are still unknown are probably negligible.
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| What if they are?
| notafraudster wrote:
| What is the epistemological framework you use to identify
| possible sources of unknown unknowns and bound their harms?
| In the absence of any framework you basically have a sort
| of nihilistic solipsism.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| We apply "Unknown unknowns", the Precautionary Principle,
| etc, to things we don't like.
|
| These principles then provide the wise sounding argument
| that our Motivated Reasoning brain center needed.
| mping wrote:
| Good question. There is no way to bound the possible
| harm, but I'd there are solid alternatives then it
| becomes less desirable. A good example of this is the
| covid vaccine: this time, the risk of unknown vaccine
| complications is worth it.
|
| As an aside, I admire the HN crowd reasoning capacity,
| but it always amazes me that almost no one is upfront and
| say we as a society love the taste of beef and are
| willing to risk environmental and possibly health issues
| for it. It would be a much more productive discussion if
| we were honest about it instead of discussing whether we
| need bigger cows.
| rocqua wrote:
| I think the most widely accepted framework here suffices.
| The emperical framework.
|
| Cross breeding occurs slowly and is a long-used process.
| The long-used means there is ample evidence suggesting
| cross-breeding results in safe food.
|
| The fact that cross breeding happens slowly gives any
| safety issues a long time to reveal themselves before it
| becomes wide-spread. Thus it makes sense that cross-
| breeding yields fewer unkown issues by the time its
| widespread. Essentially, early warning are built in, even
| for latent issues.
| datavirtue wrote:
| And you have blind trust.
| Tenoke wrote:
| There's always unknown unknowns and by now those have been
| reduced significantly for GMOs. Any reason to think the
| risk in this case might be higher than the benefits? Are
| you sure you are not overestimating the unknown unknown
| risk just because GMO sounds scary?
| rocqua wrote:
| Unknown unkowns are much more dangerous in any
| revolutionary change. Because previous experience is much
| less useful in a revolutionary change.
|
| GMO, with its large increase in potential interventions,
| is quite revolutionary.
| Eduard wrote:
| You don't provide any argument for why you like GMO food
| here. What bothers you so much about food?
| gruez wrote:
| 1. Just because he's anti-anti-GMO, doesn't mean he views
| conventional foods with disgust and buys GMO whenever he
| can
|
| 2. The benefits are clear: GMO foods are more cost
| effective, hence why farmers choose them over conventional
| cesaref wrote:
| On your second point, you are basically saying 'more
| profit' is the reason that farmers are choosing them. I
| personally am not interested in farmer profit when
| choosing what to eat.
| gruez wrote:
| >I personally am not interested in farmer profit when
| choosing what to eat.
|
| That's fine. You're free to buy the conventional version
| if that's the case. However, market pressures will likely
| bring down the price, which mean some of the
| profit/savings are passed onto you.
| simulate-me wrote:
| GMO, as a technique, is not inherently bad. However, one
| common use case is to create pesticide resistant plants,
| which allows for higher pesticide usage, especially as
| resistance develops to the pesticide increases: https://enveu
| rope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-471...
|
| Basically, if you're fine with your kids ingesting higher
| levels of pesticides, then go for it!
| bluGill wrote:
| Pesticide resistance plants mean a lot less CO2.is.emitted
| running plows through the earth. Soil that doesn't get
| disturbed with all those plows also holds absorbed CO2
| better. While it is more chemical used, they generally
| harmless.
|
| Your position is a major environmental disaster.
| nicoburns wrote:
| While it's important, CO2 isn't everything. The use of
| pesticides (and monocrops) leads to dramatic loss of
| biodiversity, and that is an environmental disaster.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Are you seriously arguing for _more_ use of pesticides on
| the plants that become our food? Maybe I misunderstand?
| sokoloff wrote:
| This topic is complex and multi-variate. Focusing only on
| one (whether that's CO2 or pesticide usage) is not going
| to lead to generally productive debate.
|
| We might both agree that pesticide usage alone should
| have a negative coefficient on whatever global fitness
| function we consider, but that a usage of zero pesticide
| is still sub-optimal.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I lived in a farming community most of my life and I
| haven't seen a plow dragged behind a tractor in over
| thirty years. No idea what you are talking about.
| Everyone is doing no-till, which includes dumping shit
| tons of nasty chemicals (created and shipped at great CO2
| costs) all over the land and in the air. Living next to
| these fields, you experience allergies, sinus problems,
| watery eyes and other random problems depending on the
| person. Even harvest season is torture--from the dust
| alone. Anyone living next to a farm or eating the crops
| coming out of them is investing harsh chemicals. Half the
| things we do in the US are banned throughout the world.
| It results in greater yield for sure, but not without
| cost.
| bluGill wrote:
| Nobody has used a plow in 30 years because they are such
| an environmental disaster. Chemicals are the answer. Some
| CO2 is used for chemicals, but not nearly as much as a
| plow would use, and that is before we look at the other
| disasters of the plow.
|
| Dust from harvest causes allergies, but don't blame it on
| chemicals. Well other than everything is a chemical.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| This is probably something I can google, but could you
| point me to some info about why the plow is a disaster?
| It seems like one of those things that made it possible
| for a huge increase in the number of people not starving
| before it became a disaster.
|
| I imagine it has something to do with erosion, but I'd
| like to know more, and you seem to have a position on the
| topic.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| Tilling effectively kills the soil and micro organisms in
| the soil over a long period of time. It takes a lot of
| work and time to add life back into dead soil on historic
| farms where tilling was commonly used.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| The amount of pesticide and herbicide used of crops is an
| environmental disaster on it's own. There is mounting
| evidence that glyphosate is responsible for increases in
| cancer and birth defects, lower fertility rates, and is
| implicated as a likely partial cause for celiac disease.
| prepend wrote:
| What about plants with insect genes to make them resistant
| to pests and thus require less pesticide? It seems like you
| are against specific applications of GM where we should be
| using it to reduce the presence of harmful things a we
| don't want our kids eating.
| [deleted]
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Even if it could theoretically occur through a natural
| breeding process. You can cross breed all you want.
|
| I'm no fan of GMO products either, but the whole point is that
| it gets you there faster , and in a more predictable way, than
| doing cross-breeding. Economics at work.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Address the real problem. We are too many people on the earth for
| the resources that we are naturally given.
|
| That's a fact.
| lonk wrote:
| Resorces are enough for all of us. But money is not. Money is
| collecting in the rich people's pocket. This is the real
| problem.
| imtringued wrote:
| Just money? What about the resources themselves? Putin is
| wealthy because he has exclusive access to them.
| ben_w wrote:
| On a national scale, sure.
|
| Worldwide (which is more relevant here), the absolute poorest
| of the poor, the people that would look up enviously to the
| accumulated wealth of a rough-sleeping westerner with a
| shopping trolley, are getting richer.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| No it's not.
| histriosum wrote:
| Even if we were to accept that fact as stated (I don't, but
| let's assume we do..)
|
| What are you proposing, exactly? It sounds like "address the
| real problem" here means you are suggesting killing people off.
| That definitely doesn't seem like a good answer.
|
| China tried the one child policy, and it didn't turn out very
| well. The second order effects were pretty awful, and will be
| felt for generations.
|
| What would you suggest the path forward to less population is?
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Based on how we exploit our resources and the amount of
| people that are wealthy enough to live a good-standard life,
| we are definitely too many people on earth.
|
| Of course I don't suggest killing people, why would you even
| suggest such a thing ?
|
| I suggest people start to educate themselves and eachother.
| Instead of having kids, adopt. Instead of eating meat 5 days
| a week, eat it twice. Start using a bike and not a car.
|
| But people don't think about the consequences for the next
| generations, and "we are empowered to have our own kids etc".
| People really don't give a fuck about the state of the world
| as long as they can get what they believe they are entitled
| to through life. And that's a problem.
|
| Start accepting that and start accepting the how exploit what
| we have dear and have been given as being part of the world.
|
| We are way too many people for all of us to live decent
| life's.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Having less/very few children would be an awful if we care
| about the next generation. You'd end up with much larger
| proportion of older people in the total population. This
| would result in a massively increase in per capita
| healthcare expenditures and a decrease in productivity. And
| guess who is going to pay for all that?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I think you're right about the outcome, but unfortunately I
| think it's inevitable. The increasing population allows the
| government to print money now, knowing that future tax
| revenue will make up for it. It's a source of power that
| doesn't easily go away. Any attempt to resist population
| growth, such as by paying people to NOT have children,
| would go against the entire pyramid scheme.
| kmlx wrote:
| > Based on how we exploit our resources and the amount of
| people that are wealthy enough to live a good-standard
| life, we are definitely too many people on earth.
|
| hi. you would be surprised to find out this is a myth that
| started in the 70s. it has been disproven time after time,
| decade after decade. and still people fall for it :)
| imtringued wrote:
| Too many people to live a modern western standard of living.
|
| I'm sure there is a compromise between vegetarianism and being
| a full on carnivore. e.g. a global middle class that doesn't
| suck.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > We are too many people on the earth for the resources that we
| are naturally given.
|
| The same old rant that we hear for like 100 years now "when we
| reach 1 billion people everyone will starve", "peak oil is just
| around the corner (back in the 70s)", and all this kind of
| bullshit.
|
| Resources are plentiful as long as you are ingenious when it
| comes to harvesting them.
| pixiemaster wrote:
| exactly. the Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of
| stones.
| fnord77 wrote:
| like nuclear fusion, peak oil is perpetually 10-15 years away
| ben_w wrote:
| American oil peaked and then declined almost exactly as
| expected, and only saw a second growth phase when a new
| category of resources became exploitable.
|
| IMO, given the scale of everything in the USA, it's more
| luck than anything else that the world is getting
| sufficiently cheap renewables and batteries on the right
| schedule to avoid peak oil actually harming civilisation in
| general and the USA catastrophically -- the principle is a
| valid one, and in a hypothetical alternative world where
| global reserves had been half what they were, American
| rural areas would have had a much harder time than European
| equivalents adapting to electric power and long distance
| transport in the 70s.
| imtringued wrote:
| >In the meantime, approximately 793 million people are
| starving around the world, according to the U.N. That makes
| up about 11 percent of the population.
|
| https://borgenproject.org/how-many-people-are-starving-
| aroun...
|
| It's true isn't it?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Resources are plentiful as long as you are ingenious when
| it comes to harvesting them.
|
| Resources are also plentiful until they're not. The idea that
| people have been saying that resources are running out for a
| long time is not evidence that they are infinite.
|
| You'd have to be quite ingenious to maintain the fossil fuel
| supply indefinitely through your harvesting tactics, unless
| the tactic you use is to slow to a stop.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Who is polluting the world ?
|
| Why are we breeding cattle which has modified genes for not
| sweating ?
|
| You say resources are plentiful but apploud (?) modified
| cattle so they don't sweat, so they don't pollute and so we
| all can keep eating meat. You really don't see a flaw in that
| ?
|
| Of course we are too many people. Denying that is really
| naive.
| ben_w wrote:
| The number of humans that can live on this planet
| simultaneously is a function of technology.
|
| If we all lived like hunters and gatherers, the population
| limit would be a mere few tens of millions.
|
| Conversely, if we imagine arbitrary technology, the maximum
| population that can live simultaneously and sustainably on
| this world is somewhere in the trillions.
|
| Technology such as the stuff you're trying to use as
| evidence there's too many of us, is in fact the technology
| that allows there to be more of us.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's also a function of the finite resources available to
| us. You also need to factor in that we don't have
| arbitrary technology and never will. There will always be
| limits to our technology. I think the gist of the GP
| argument is something like:
|
| Our use of technology is using increasing amounts of our
| planets resources (e.g. land), and is often questionably
| ethical (exploiting the other creatures we share our
| planet with). At which point you have to ask the
| question: is an expanded human population worth that
| cost?
| ben_w wrote:
| Sure, and if I'm talking to someone who claims e.g. the
| economy can grow forever I'd make a similar point myself.
|
| But we don't have trillions of people yet, and the
| difficulty of supporting the current population
| sustainably is more one of organisation than
| technological inability -- much closer to irrigating and
| enclosing in greenhouses Nevada, Utah, and Arizona [0]
| than it is to colonising Mars. (I'm told greenhouses are
| way more productive than open air farms, just not cost
| effective in most cases; the example given by proponents
| is the Netherlands).
|
| > is an expanded human population worth that cost?
|
| To whom? I'm vegetarian and pushing myself in the
| direction of veganism, partly because of ethics. Ethics
| are however are relative, and many humans only care about
| other humans. Heck, given that the nature of the rich
| inner world often called "self-awareness" or
| "consciousness" is not yet sufficiently well defined to
| even be testable, such people may even be correct. I'm
| not even sure at what threshold to stop caring myself --
| lobster brains aren't very complex, and bivalves (despite
| being animals) don't even have brains:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivalvia#Nervous_system
|
| [0] for illustration purposes only; this is almost
| certainly a suboptimal set of locations.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| And yet another the average person living in any developed
| country (also to a lesser but still significant degree in
| all of countries) is much better off, in almost every
| conceivable way, than his ancestors were when the total
| world population was only a few hundred million people.
|
| If you're primary concern is the welfare of humans (not
| saying it should be) rather than wildlife and natural
| ecosystems there almost no evidence which would suggest
| that an increase in global population results in a lower
| QoL for an average person.
| kotxig wrote:
| It's good for climate change because it will gross enough of us
| out to stop eating meat all together.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| 0) Raise cattle
|
| 1) Earth gets warmer because we do shit like raise cattle
|
| 2) Cattle might die
|
| 3) Bio-engineer cattle that can live on warmer earth
|
| 4) ???
|
| 5) Get fucked
| spicymaki wrote:
| Perhaps we can bio-engineer humans to be humane. I would back
| that research.
| mgerdts wrote:
| I first thought "oh great more GMOs to maximize corporate profits
| while making animals miserable. Then my hopes rose with this:
|
| > They were bred with climate change in mind
|
| So they've found a way to have happy cows that burp less methane?
|
| No? Shorter hair so their methane burb greenhouse doesn't feel so
| hot? Oh. This probably just boils down to profits after all.
| [deleted]
| lonk wrote:
| I wonder which one effectfull to climate change, people's total
| farts vs the total farts of cows in the world?
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Cows by a wide margin, probably. And it's mainly their burps,
| actually.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Everyone forgets the missing methane output from the nearly
| extirpated bison population. Cattle in north america are
| only slightly more numerous than the peak bison population.
| ben_w wrote:
| I wasn't expecting to ask this when I woke up this
| morning but: how much methane did bison burp relative to
| the same biomass of modern cattle?
| imtringued wrote:
| Probably less because we are feeding the cheapest source
| of feed to cows, not what they can digest the best. The
| food that your body fails to digest will be digested in
| the big intestine which can lead to bloating.
| mgerdts wrote:
| > A number of past studies have found lower greenhouse
| gas emissions associated with the feedlot system. One
| reason is that grass-fed cows gain weight more slowly, so
| they produce more methane (mostly in the form of belches)
| over their longer lifespans.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239
| /is...
| koonsolo wrote:
| 36% of all mammals today are humans 60% are livestock
|
| So I guess you have the answer
| tormock wrote:
| They will get more sun burns... at least I do when I shave my
| head.
|
| They are probably doing this because the hair are a nuisance when
| they process the skins?
| thebricksta wrote:
| The optimist in me hopes this really is a quality of life
| improvement for the cattle. The pessimist in me fears this a
| way to begin patenting livestock.
| x3c wrote:
| Being out in the sun itself would be a huge step up in
| quality of life of cattle. Doubt free range cows represent a
| majority.
| tormock wrote:
| Either way, 1/2" long hair probably isn't a big overheating
| factor
| lonk wrote:
| If meat is designed and/or produced at lab, it is not meat. It is
| cancer. Do not eat cancer.
| ben_w wrote:
| The first two sentences are so badly wrong I don't even know
| which thread to pull on to unravel your thought processes. (I
| can't speak for the third).
|
| Do you believe that "natural" is tautologically equivalent to
| "good"?
| ls15 wrote:
| Are cancerous cells unhealthy to eat?
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't know, but I do know some tumours are transmissible
| (even interspecies) so I wouldn't want to rule it out:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer
|
| I expect thorough cooking to prevent this sort of thing, but
| some people do eat raw flesh deliberately.
| futuretom2055 wrote:
| judging from the article right above this one, soon we will see
|
| "Lawmakers Eats CRISPR Beef to Celebrate Legality, Become
| Immediately Sick (2055) (modernfarmer.com)"
| Thorrez wrote:
| Why 2055? Isn't it legal right now?
| DocTomoe wrote:
| It will take some time for the public to take notice and
| create a meaningful movement against that thing. For nuclear,
| it took about 35 years before we saw public protest that was
| more than just three potentially mentally unstable folks
| raving about the end of the world.
| zaroth wrote:
| The nuke protests just managed to line Russia's pockets
| with German treasure and lead to more coal deaths, so
| perhaps it's an apt comparison, but not the one you're
| looking for.
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