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Comment by throwaway55421 | Hacker News Reader

Nah.

The obvious endgame there is that you reduce the amount of land required per person and then increase the persons, ending up with the same land requirement.

Then we look for the next thing to cut.

I'll just keep my current quality of life and outcompete others for resources, thanks. Carbon tax pls.

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This makes no sense, and is a typical non-sequitur thrown out by those who are unwilling to give up meat. There is absolutely no evidence that meat eating is the limiting factor in population growth.

Evidence? It's mathematical, not scientific. Derivable from first principles.

I can eat meat as much as I want provided another 7 billion people don't also do the same.

The issue is with the number of people, not the activity. Literally any use of land is a bad idea at that scale, we end up in rabbit hutches.

Another non-sensical response. You made the claim, not me. It's your responsibility to provide evidence.

For more information, please re-read.

What you've said makes sense, but not as a reply. Unless you can explain how it justifies the claim that the other person claimed you made?

Malthus didn't count on people just not wanting to have kids.

> There is absolutely no evidence that meat eating is the limiting factor in population growth.

So you're saying eating meat is fine then?

If this comment isn't a joke then you are acting in bad faith.

Not a joke, just not following your chain of logic regarding meat eating.

No you aren't, you are replying with a snarky non-sequitur. It has nothing to do with any claims or logic in my post.

I think the response you are replying to meant this sentiment: Ranch land can and occasionally does turn back into wild land, once its a subdivision its gone forever. Over the long run he is certainly right that less requirements for ranch land doesn't do anything to ensure that we get more land without fences.

My argument is that eating vegetarian does not reduce land use for agriculture.

It does to first order. Then we just end up with more mouths - like what happened after the Haber-Bosch process.

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