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Not sure what to take from this other than it being a really bad take. Insect protein is orders of magnitude more sustainable and eco-friendly than beef. We could replace all the land we destroyed that is used to have cows standing around in their own shit and for a fraction of the acreage produce the same number of protein and calories without massively contributing to climate change.
Yeah or just eat plants like someone who isn't fucking nuts
I'm a big fan of plant based burgers, but the reality is that telling people "just eat plants" is not going to result in any change. They've long ago decided that the inconvenience of switching protein sources is greater than the climate impact ignoring that choice makes, so the only way we're ever going to see change is to either ban cows or provide an alternative that the masses can/will adopt.
The fda has just approved lab grown chicken for two separate companies. It will still most likely take more land/energy to produce than plants, but should eventually be more efficient than traditional meat. It also has the benfit of not being a substitute, but instead actually being meat.
Oops, didn't scroll down far enough to see someone already mentioned it. Feel free to ignore me
I hadn't actually heard about lab-grown chicken, everything I'm read about has been beef. Vat chicken soup would be cool too.
Now, eggs might be more difficult
Apparently eggs have already been done, as has milk that can be turned into cheese
Although it's a different process
Rather than grow them by duplicating existing cells, instead you GMO brewer's yeast to produce the proteins you want, similar to how we make insulin now, and then add the few things you can't get the yeast to provide (which with sufficient tinkering, is basically just the shell, and even that can be substituted with plastic containers)
What's so nuts about eating insects? Lots of cultures do it.
How can one realize that gender is a social construct but still think that eating insects is "unnatural"?
Cultures of starvation. If rich Western countries were giving away all the perfectly good food they trash, I guarantee you eating arthropods would stop in a generation. You could also pretty fairly argue that the entire point of social constructs like society is to avoid shivering in the cold, being murdered for your shiny rocks, or eating insects.
Cultures of starvation. If rich Western countries were giving away all the perfectly good food they trash, I guarantee you eating arthropods would stop in a generation.
Yeah, sure, lobsters (which are also arthropods) only get eaten because people don't have anything else. /s
You could also pretty fairly argue that the entire point of social constructs like society is to avoid shivering in the cold, being murdered for your shiny rocks, or eating insects.
Agreed. But you have not presented any reason for putting "eating insects" in the same category as "shivering in the cold" and "being murdered for your shiny rocks". Some social constructs are useful, but they're not useful by virtue of being social constructs.
Yeah, sure, lobsters (which are also arthropods) only get eaten because people don't have anything else.
At first I thought you were being completely serious, but then I realized that you were being sarcastic after you told me, good thing you did! Anyway, lobsters were eaten because there was nothing else. Making them into a luxury dish is a modern affectation. That's not an actual counterargument to the real point here, but it needed to be said.
Agreed. But you have not presented any reason for putting "eating insects" in the same category as "shivering in the cold" and "being murdered for your shiny rocks". Some social constructs are useful, but they're not useful by virtue of being social constructs.
My reason is the only reason that actually exists when it comes to the value of social constructs: consensus. Most people find eating vermin to be disgusting for some reason, and they avoid doing so if it doesn't increase their likelihood of starving to death. Which is why you find this aversion to be less prevalent in cultures where famine and starvation exist right now and/or in living memory—and thanks to colonialism, there are a lot of deadly famines in living memory in the third world. I agree that social constructs don't have any intrinsic value, but what difference does it make? Social constructs have the value people place on them, and that value can be imported from other places. Eating bugs is, to most people, disgusting. Like all value statements, this should be understood within its context as being a statement of arbitrary value that is supported by the consensus of a large plurality of people (though this one has majority support). Asking for quantification of it like "why is this a right thing to believe?" is just asking "why do we value what we value instead of valuing something else?", to which the only actual answer that matters is "because it had to be something, and we got this". But as I said, values get imported from elsewhere, like trauma or instinct, such as how European culture developed certain values around hygiene after and in response to the plagues. In my opinion it's reasonable to assume that human beings are instinctively averse to writhing masses of disgusting vermin that are usually found in places like fetid bogs and putrid rotting corpses, and that we are far less averse to things that resemble our ancestral natural prey, like deer and geese.
Also, the idea of the comic as I interpreted it is that the upper class thinks pandering will trick poor people into enjoying eating bugs while they themselves continue to eat meat, which has a meta-point to it told through subtext, like all jokes do: that capitalists value having what other people don't have, that they think the "poors" can be tricked out of it like simpletons, and that they think humiliating the poor and exploiting them in their humiliation is a virtue as long as it's profitable. I would have explained this to the other guy arguing with me, but he gallantly resists being reasoned with and seems much happier nailing himself to the cross.
I still think I'd prefer vatburger
Assuming you're referring to lab-grown meat, I think that's also a great alternative. We should be exploring any and all options that can get us to stop relying on cows for protein.
Yeah, I am referring to lab/vat grown meat (I don't think 'lab grown' is really accurate once it's at the industrial scale), and I can't wait. Steaks would be nice, but burger should be easy, since most inconsistencies in the meat would be solved by grinding it. I've tried beyond meat/impossible burger, and they just aren't right; gimmie some vat tacos, the sooner the better.
Though I did actually read an article a while back about gene-engineered plants spliced to produce animal proteins that were apparently a very convincing facsimile; I can't remember what plant, but I would assume beans. If that ever makes it to market, I'd love to give it a try as well