We, the people, have the power to improve this situation. Call your representatives, do activism, talk to your friends about it, vote for the right candidates.
And stop eating meat and fish! It's insane for many reasons even if you don't care about how the animals are treated:
* Biodiversity loss: because we kill everything in the sea by fishing, and we kill everything in the fields for intensive agriculture (which is needed to feed the cattle). And because of deforestation of course. * Antibiotic-resistance: because putting so many animals (fishes or cows) together brings diseases we need to treat. * CO2 emissions: it's super inefficient, we all know it.
Not being a vegetarian in 2025 is just completely unreasonable.
We had Greta Thunberg talking to politicians, but actually I'm looking forward to when kids will ask their parents: "So you know you are killing us in so many ways, and you can't be arsed to eat less meat? Aren't you supposed to care about us?"
Note that apart from the rainwater one, I do none of the above, so I'm not even pleading for myself and my "way of life". I'm just showing how easy it is to boldly state that "it is obvious, we just all have to be reasonable" while, in fact, _not_ being "reasonable" yourself.
Stopping to eat meat/fish is probably the one thing that is reasonably easy, cheap (vegetarian food is globally cheaper), and would have a huge impact.
And raising cattle dates from the dawn of civilization. It was sustainable tens of thousands of years and suddenly became unsustainable in the last ten years?
You really don't have a clue how it works, do you? I'm genuinely concerned.
Far from a counterpoint, they testify to the reasonableness of the request in this instance, of stepping away from factory farming, because it belongs to a class of similar and well respected recommendations. Getting people to actually change their behavior is an important issue, and the purpose of recognizing it should be to reckon with it in a serious way rather that use it to tee up complaints about hypocrisy that seem to imply the futility of doing anything.
Again, not a personal attack, but do you follow all of these actions (I could add more similar ones)? Do you own or use a car? Have you ever taken a flight? Went on a cruise? Ate cashews or almond milk? If so, why are you doing this? Why are you (to use the terms stated by OP), so unreasonable, unwilling to do so simple things for your children?
I'm not saying that any action is futile, but that the cost (monetary or otherwise) to take them is _vastly_ underestimated and basically swept under the rug with arguments of reasonableness and simplicity.
And, just to restate, I am not defending my own lifestyle, it's not an emotional argument to make for me.
My concern is that both sides are frustratingly obvious and are corrections in search of someone or something to be corrected. I don't think that anything you're saying is strictly wrong, but I think it's baffling to offer in this context where it seems to be a counterpoint in a room full of people who already agree with it (except for maybe that I-want-my-cheeseburgers-at-any-price guy). This is what I mean about Learned Sage comments, and I think the fix is to cover your bases with charitable interpretation.
I'm arguing against : "So you know you are killing us in so many ways, and you can't be arsed to eat less meat? Aren't you supposed to care about us?"
You can replace "to eat less meat" by basically a thousand different "reasonable" things. Does that mean that _literally everyone on earth_ is willingly "killing their children and not caring about them"?
I really dislike those arguments patronizing everyone. They achieve nothing -- actually quite the contrary, at _best_ they do nothing for someone who do not feel targeted, at worst they turn people against your cause. There's a difference between stating that each of us can and should take action because those are needed and saying that everyone not doing X is a child killer. If someone suggest that I should stop drinking almond milk, I would consider it. If they introduce this by telling how ashamed I should be and how my children will hate me for this -- but not for long since they will soon be dead anyway because of me -- well, maybe I'll just ignore an otherwise perfectly reasonable and fact-based suggestion.
Still, personally I try to let myself challenged even if the argument is patronizing. I don't want to say "I will not do X because you made a patronizing argument!". But for the cases I conclude it is actually a good idea, I will try to explain to the people making the argument "you would have convinced me easier if communicated like this".
Last time I checked humans are omnivores, not herbivores.
I don't want to get ill, acquire some physical weaknesses because there are unreasonable people on the internet.
Saying things like "it's unreasonable to eat meat and fish" a very ignorant in more than one way.
Don’t stop there, because being a vegetarian (lacto or ovo) has a larger environmental burden too. Go vegan instead.
I'm fine with the cost of a burger pricing in all these externalities, but I also don't like the idea of turning something like meat into a luxury good where only well-off people can afford it.
Why is that? What are the downsides of this scenario? Genuinely curious, as I believe this has been the norm historically.
Is there a word that’s the opposite of “tautology”? Because this question seems like an example. It maps to “what are the downsides of decreasing quality of life for most people”.
Antibiotic resistance implies "killing most of people faster" which in my book is worse than "decreasing quality of life for meat eaters".
I do eat meat occasionally, but I generally I am not able to eat all that I like each day (think: different cuisines, deserts, etc.) so maybe people just did not try enough stuff to enjoy more than one/two dishes... which in itself sounds sad to me.
We will always discover new drugs. Because we are smart due to animal fats we eat and our brains thrives with.
Also, why propose quiting raising cattle instead of a more careful using of the antibiotics when treating animals?
Beyond that I'd argue we should strive to minimize class-based access restrictions to food rather than artificaly enforce them.
>That's part of the problem. You wanting the burger has all these negative consequences for humans, animals and nature.
Now it sounds like you're saying you know there was a middle ground but were saying it anyway to make some kind of rhetorical point, but I don't know what rhetorical point you are making.
Apart from widespread illnesses, malnutrition, physical weaknesses and reduced life expectancy?
I don't disagree necessarily, but to be clear my comment was't directed at a wide audience, but rather directed at GP who did say something that to me would indicate heavily that they are either unaware of or choose not to acknowledge those fundamentals about human nature:
> You wanting the burger has all these negative consequences for humans, animals and nature.
I fully concede that I may be reading it too literally, but I don't think it's unreasonable to take what people say at face value. In fact I think that's the most reasonable thing to do as attempting to read minds over the internet quickly deteriorates conversation into talking past each other and people assuming you're lying/misrepresenting your true intentions (aka, reddit). I don't think I've interpreted their statement uncharitably either, though if I have that was inadvertent and was not my intention.
But also, my main point was more about the path to success than the tediously obvious truism. My main point is that shaming people for their nature isn't generally effective. I've seen this first-hand having grown up in a religious environment that heavily shamed sexual feelings/activity outside of marriage. The path to success (IMHO of course) is to develop palatable alternatives to meat.
Before discovering agriculture, we were hunters gatherers. Practicing agriculture allowed human population to expand tremendously.
If you forbid agriculture, how do you wish to proceed with eugenics and euthanasia? Because not practicing agriculture will probably only allow 2% of mankind to survive.
And if and when they do, our response would be to consider interventions, not to treat it as a reason to disengage from the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Though I suspect cheap lab grown meat (absent some reactionary political backlash like we've seen in Florida) can make it cheap and accessible to everyone and possibly bypass the concerns about antibiotics.
Do you know how many animals are killed farming a wheat field? We used to have to purge colonies of prairie dogs each spring in order to plant. Then there are the birds that get caught in the harvesters and the insects killed by the pesticides. It’s a horror show either way.
Personally I think lying about the timeline just gives ammunition to climate denialists because each time it's rolled out it creates a data point a denier can point at and say "look nothing happened".
Realistically if this is a problem it's my adult grandkids at most or great-grandkids who it would begin to impact.
I mean it's gradual up to a point, but when you can't survive anymore, it's not like you can ignore it.
> and the coping strategies will develop alongside.
Such as "drill baby, drill!" and tariffs :-).
We won't be in a post-apocalyptic hellscape in 10 years if that's your measuring stick for negative effects.
From the scientific models we have, we're pretty much screwed. From the measurements we make and compare to the models, it appears like the models are optimistic.
What's sad is that people like you now say "it's not as bad as they say" and 20 years from now you'll be the first ones to say "we didn't know, why didn't they tell us?".
> Realistically if this is a problem it's my adult grandkids at most or great-grandkids who it would begin to impact.
It's already impacting us. We are measurably living in a mass extinction that is happening faster than the one of the dinosaurs.
The way it's going, GenZ (probably millenials) are more likely to die from this than from age. After having lived in global war times. Anyone in their thirties or less being anxious about their retirement are missing the bigger problem they will be facing at that age.
2) Your ire is misdirected. Whether this individual does or does not eat meat has 0.000000001% impact on the meat production industry. Your energy is much better spent advocating for policies that reduce overall meat consumption, as the GP was voicing their support for.
We're at a point where whoever thinks we're fine is totally uninformed. We're living in a mass extinction that is measurably happening faster than the one of the dinosaurs (spoiler: they disappeared). We're going for 4 degrees warming (and that's a conservative estimate), which means that half of the planet will become uninhabitable (as in, if you stay outside without life support, you die). What happens when half the planet wants to move (together with all their military force) where the other half of the planet is?
And what's the answer to that? "Hmm I think we will miraculously find a solution, in the meantime I want my burger".
> Completely agree. Reducing or getting rid of livestock animal agriculture will help with many major challenges we have today, like climate change, loss of biodiversity, animal cruelty, antimicrobial resistance. But hey, gotta have that cheap burger, huh?
They said "I don't care if it's cheap, but I want my burger".
Can you understand where I come from?
There are models of agriculture that achieve better sustainability by using a small number of livestock as unskilled labor to emulate the wild environments that the plants our gene stock come from were adapted to. This will likely be the model moving forward, especially as petrochemical fertilizers get more expensive.
“Just enough” livestock will still get too old to breed or provide labor. They will still have too many babies in good weather and need to be culled in subsequent bad years. That doesn’t put T-bone steaks on everybody’s plate, but it does provide enough animal protein to approximate the traditional Asian diet of a few ounces of animal protein per day, as soup stock and a bit of variety.
The future will still have chicken soup even if burger joints go away.
My kids enjoy eating meat and dairy. I hope my grandchildren will, too, because is healthy to have a well balanced diet.
Cheese has been with us for millennia. About half as long as we have had civilization. Other cultures (yogurt, etc) for I don’t know how long. But the fixation on milk is largely a product of oversupply.
Of course getting people to learn about these things and politicians to adopt sensible policies about it is a whole other game.
Of course, this is exactly what authoritarian governments want. People who are exhausted, just poor enough but not too poor to start a revolution. People who don't have the time to read (really read, not watch TikTok videos) about important issues.
But I like to eat meat, and I have lots of other things in my life to worry about; doing something to improve this situation is nowhere near the list of things I will actually have the bandwidth to work on.
> they want others to lower their quality of life or spend more.
This is the other sucky part: while we should be paying the "real" cost of meat, I don't think it's fair to make meat only affordable to those who are fairly well-off. That sounds like something out of a dystopian speculative fiction novel.