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Comment by delusional | Hacker News Reader

In that case we shipped literal dirt around the world so that he could put it in his garden. Is that any less absurd?

It is kind of odd how we ship grains and soybeans farmed in the rain forest to a factory farm in the US and then end up with huge poo lagoons that in theory would have to be shipped back to the farms in the rain forest to act as fertilizer. Instead people just abandon the land and continue with their slash and burn agriculture on a different plot of land.

What do you propose as an alternative?

Eat locally grown food?

So, no banana for you, eat potatoes instead?

You haven't tried the vast majority of fruits, veggies, meats, fishes out there and I'm sure you don't feel like you're life is miserable because of it

That argument makes no sense. Presumably, jimbobimbo already sources ~100% of their intake from some producer outside of their apartment, to not be stuck on eating the mushrooms growing in the bathroom.

Just because there is even more out there to miss out on doesn’t make missing out on bananas less of an issue.

I assume you can just stop to eat altogether, because you’re not consuming the vast majority of food out there.

You do understand that this position comes across as incredibly paternalistic? It's like mom telling a child they can't have a cookie until they finish their broccoli first.

I don't have to try "the vast majority" of other stuff to enjoy the banana.

To be fair, if a system that allows anyone in the world at any time to enjoy a banana is unsustainable in a way that may cause human civilisation to end due to our environment collapsing, then perhaps we need to look into finding a different system. However I’m pretty sure that making human beings sacrifice short-term benefits for long-term sustainability, at scale, is almost impossible.

This may come as a surprise, but there's plenty of wastage in locally shipped produce too. It's not so much the distance as the act of picking things and putting them into boxes, and taking them out of boxes again that does it.

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