distic
13d ago
I don't think the main point against eating animal meat is the fact that it kills animals, but the impact on environment and the land efficiency. To eat a pound of beef, you need the cow to eat a lot of grass, which takes a lot more land than producing a pound of vegetables. Moreover, cows produce a lot of CO which has a huge climate impact.
distic
12d ago
The land used for the grass and the cereals could be used for something else (growing trees, for example). And by eating the grass and anything green in the grass cow do prevent trees to grow.
Moreover the grass produces CO2 if it's not eaten by some other animal while the cow produces CH4. CH4 has a stronger greenhouse effect than CO2 and then it quite rapidly degrades and becomes CO2.
distic
13d ago
People here take the view that it is somehow related to modern feminism, but it might not be. Women, for centuries (at least since Lucretia killed herself), have been trained to think that a rape was worse than death, because death takes your life but rape takes your honor, and in this old-fashioned theory a life without honor is not worth living. Moreover, women have also be trained to say they don't want sex ; if they admit they would prefer to be with a man than with a bear, what would people think? Do you really think Lucretia would have preferred the man over the bear?
I'm not saying it has nothing to do with modern feminism. Actually, I think the old fashioned honor is responsible for a large part of modern feminism, as opposed to earlier feminism. In the seventies with the sexual liberation movement the accent was on having more sex, not less. The idea of a rape was somewhat conservative, as it assumed that it was important to women to not have sex in some circumstances. By the way, it also lead to a lot of abuses. With AIDS, Reagan and Thatcher, the conservative gained ground and feminists began to insist on the consent of women and her individual rights as opposed to "sexual freedom". The modern emphasis on rape is a result of both earlier feminism and the conservative ideology.
distic
12d ago
Yes but we wouldn't produce the forage in the first place. Or you can burn it to produce energy (and CO2 is still better than CH4)
distic
12d ago
I don't know how the beef lobby computes it (and whether they import cereal from foreign countries) but if you take account for all animal feed (not just beef) it is more than 7%:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-cereals-animal-feed?tab=chart
release more methane than would be released by the natural decomposition of the forage material?
Honestly I don't know but the point is not to let the cereal decompose, that would be dumb. It's to use those lands to produce something else, something that wouldn't produce any CH4 and ideally that would absorb a bit of it. Anyway it would be better to burn the cereals and to produce energy with it (we get no CH4 - worse than CO2 - and more energy).
distic
12d ago
I meant CH4, and the problem is not the ranching it's the cereal production to feed cows.
distic
12d ago
The reason is that people eat a lot of beef. Farmers don't try to optimize the environmental impact of our food, they optimize their revenue (and they are right to do so).
distic
12d ago
You can feed it to some other animal then, the cow is the worse.
distic
2mo ago
Because it's visible, so it's easy to organize around it. People will know what side you are just by looking at you.
France has laws against racial discrimination
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006070719/LEGISCTA000006165298/
Discrimination as defined in articles 225-1 to 225-1-2, committed against a natural or legal person, is punishable by three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros when it consists in:
1° Refusing to supply a good or service;
2° Obstructing the normal exercise of any economic activity;
3° Refusing to hire, punishing or dismissing a person;
4° to subordinate the supply of a good or service to a condition based on one of the elements referred to in article 225-1 or provided for in articles 225-1-1 or 225-1-2;
5° To make an offer of employment, a request for an internship or a period of training in a company subject to a condition based on one of the elements referred to in article 225-1 or provided for in articles 225-1-1 or 225-1-2;
6° To refuse to accept a person for one of the internships referred to in 2° of article L. 412-8 of the Social Security Code.
Where the discriminatory refusal referred to in 1° is committed in a place open to the public or with the aim of preventing access to it, the penalties are increased to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
distic
5mo ago
My theory is that if you want to sell to (white) men, you'd better show female on screen. And it's better because if you are subtle enough you can even score feminism point while using women as sex objects
distic
3mo ago
There are "elections" in Russia one month from now. Elections are a dangerous time for the power in place, even in Russia, because people can choose this time to protest. Putin just wanted to make it clear that no opposition will be allowed.
There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of their regime. Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.
EDIT:
In the wake of the 9/11 Attacks, the Jewish Neocons stampeded America towards the disastrous Iraq War and the resulting destruction of the Middle East, with the talking heads on our television sets endlessly claiming that “Saddam Hussein is another Hitler.”
By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war. The people who opposed it took a ton of shit. You probably wanted this war yourself. But I guess it is easier to blame the stupid choices you made on the jews.
distic
7mo ago
The question is not about the legitimacy of Israel. Israel was founded on blood like any other state in the world. Before that the territory was british, and before that it was ottoman (turkish) for centuries. So do you think Turkey was the legitimate owner of this territory? Anyway they didn't get it peacefully from the crusaders, who took it by force from the arabs. Those arabs took it by force from the byzantine empire. I don't think I need to continue.
Nowadays, Israel is a strong state and a nuclear power. Perhaps it has no right to exist but it will exist anyway. The earlier you accept it, the earlier a more acceptable solution than this awful status quo can be found.
distic
3mo ago
As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained
But that is precisely why losers should be required to provide proofs when they contest an election! Otherwise no peace is possible because the losers will always contest the results because it will always be in their best interest.
distic
3mo ago
Your core point is not clear because it is an anti-analogy. Analogies are not helpful to begin with, but anti-analogies are even worse. It needs to be clarified, but let me help.
I agree that any citizen committed to democracy should make sure that the electoral process is fair. This means, above all, that the legal procedures in place have been respected, and also that nothing has occurred which cannot be codified but which seriously calls into question the sincerity of the ballot. I think you agree, but contradict me if you don't.
However, here's where it gets complicated: questioning the results (in bad faith) is also a way of trying to cheat. So a citizen committed to democracy should also view any accusations of fraud with circumspection.
He or she should therefore demand that anyone making such accusations provides, perhaps not evidence, but factual elements that lead him or her to believe that irregularities have been committed and that they are of such a nature as to call the results into question. Tell me where I'm wrong.
distic
7mo ago
Even if you live in the west, China may use informations about you. Do you work for the army? Do you work for a competitor of a chinese company? Do you hold anti chinese views? Are you an obstacle on the way of a chinese agent?
I understand that you don't trust your government, but trusting a foreign government more is something weird...
distic
3mo ago
Most western leaders did not explicitly reference the history of suspicious deaths of opposition leaders (and the fact that Navalny was poisoned once). It's just obvious to everyone
distic
3mo ago
I like your pragmatism. There is a related argument: once there is democracy, the opposition candidate policy doesn't matter much, because you can choose another one if you want to.
distic
4mo ago
You are comparing the US to countries were homosexuality is forbidden, sometimes leading to death penalty, while the original comparison was with Europe
distic
2mo ago
I don't really know. I don't think there is any disparate impact law, you'd have to prove the disparate impact is intentionnal and thus that it falls in the scope of the anti discrimination law.
distic
1yr ago
You might be on something. In another message in this CW thread, someone implies that companies want their sector to be as lightly regulated as possible. However, it seems to me it is not always true. Think about children toys: if the regulations remain light, then there is no or less incentive to buy new toys compared to re-use older ones. If the regulations become heavier, then old children toys become dangerous. You should not re-use them. You should buy new ones. Why would the toy industry oppose it? In this case, it might be a win-win situation (children get safer toys, and toy companies get more money).
But you can also have the exact same phenomenon with "social regulation" or with authorship. It might be expensive to compete with the best works of the past. You have to hire talented people, to give them money, and even then you have a high failure risk. So what about lowering the bar? Just use whatever social trend to make the older works worse, out of fashion. And if it makes you free of the authors and their IP, even better, right?
distic
10mo ago
In practice, neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker than Russia and can be invaded at any time. Russia would just have to wait for a time where NATO is occupied somewhere else. Russia violated the Budapest memorandum and the Minsk agreement. How could Ukraine trust them to not invade them?
Moreover, the fact that Ukraine is or is not in NATO is not very relevant for the security of Russia. They are American nukes in the baltic countries, so the threat would not be any bigger. On the other side, Russia would still have nukes, so the invasion risks aren't any higher. So if Ukraine joining NATO does not change anything for Russia security, you have to find another reason why it matters to them. The only thing Russia can do if Ukraine is "neutral" but not if it is in NATO is invading them.
has destroyed the country
No, the invasion has.
has cost enormous sums of money
The invasion has. The US are not responsible for it.
has wasted American influence in Ukraine
Are you kidding? American influence is stronger than ever in Ukraine.
has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology
No, their invasion has pressured them to do so.
has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West
Once again, it's their choice to invade Ukraine that has alienated them. Even after 2014 the west was totally OK negotiating with Russia. Have you heard about Nord Stream 2?
has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia
They always did... They are not democratic countries, they have an interest in helping authoritarian regimes. It has not much to do with Ukraine.
and all we get in return is some dead Russians
And the reassurance that you won't abandon your allies, which was in doubt after the Afghanistan retreat.
Yes it is a cycle, but if you replace a cycle where the carbon exists 500 years as a tree and 70 years as CO2 by a cycle where it exists 1 year as corn, 14 years as a cow and 70 years as CO2 it has a huge impact on the quantity of CO2 in the air.
Anyway oil is also natural, it did not magically appear under the ground. It's just a very long cycle.
And by the way I don't care about vegans, anyone thinking bees should consent to give you their honey is dumb
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