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dilbert’s hugely selective (i.e. taking only himself as the measure) view blocks out the obvious social problems of alcohol. the domestic violence, the spirals into addiction, the hopelessness and desperation, the early deaths and so on. that stuff is the dark attendant to many drugs, of course, but it’s really silly to make out alcohol is a benign substance that is ‘practically harmless in moderation’. the point is that it’s responsible for derailing many people’s lives – whether for genetic/physiological reasons, sociological reasons, reasons of economic hardship etc – and poses a serious social ill in many societies.

‘people have to die from something’ is not the right response to studies claiming high rates of alcohol-related mortality in people under 54. russia’s male life expectancy is on par with many african nations. saying ‘well, some type of food or drink has to be responsible for your death ultimately’ is blinkered to the point of growing a mane and neighing.

once again the objective harmfulness of a substance doesn’t have much to do with your personal habits of consumption. there are plenty of casual heroin users who would protest its harmless, and you’d call that a nonsense immediately.

alcohol is toxic (red meat isn’t, it is nutritious and beneficial; only in too-large amounts does it lead to metabolic issues, as with many otherwise healthy foods); alcohol is addictive; alcohol is neurotoxic; alcohol affects cognitions and inhibitions; alcohol is habit-forming and responsible for many domestic and social privations. red meat is nothing like any of those things. people consume red meat sometimes as a necessary and vital part of their balanced diets; people consume alcohol for leisure, not sustenance, for the intoxicating effects alone.

it is a complete category error to compare them. saying ‘everyone has to die of something’ is just such a stupidly fatuous point to make. should we suspend all medicine and good scientific advice? point people towards medieval memento moris instead, in the fashion of a fatalistic religious peasant? the evidence is pretty incontrovertible: alcohol is a harmful substance even in tiny quantities and you imbibe it at your own risk.

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-08 04:44:43)

red meat is literally nutritious and beneficial. it contains dozens of nutrients. alcohol, or at least 99% of every alcoholic beverage, is literally useless calories or a poison.

from the australian journal of nutrition and dietetics:

• Red meat is an excellent source of high biological value protein, vitamin B12, niacin, vitamin B6, iron, zinc and phosphorus

• A source of long‐chain omega‐3 polyunsaturated fats, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, selenium and, possibly, also vitamin D

• Relatively low in fat and sodium

•A source of a range of endogenous antioxidants and other bioactive substances, including taurine, carnitine, carnosine, ubiquinone, glutathione and creatine

there are probably better ways to have a good time than to imbibe a poisonous drug that gets you into car-wrecks or leads you to shoot your wife, but hey, that's just how it goes.

i don't disagree that the meat industry is an ecological and ethical problem. perhaps we can do without meat now, at this juncture in history. but red meat has been vitally nutritious and part of humans' diet for eons. people eat it because it provides their body with necessary fuel. the same is not true of alcohol. it is completely surplus and actively detrimental to your health. red meat in regular, moderate quantities is not the same thing.

to even persist in the 'meat is poison! like a drug!' argument makes you sound like a patchouli-hippie straight out of the 1960s. it is a bizarro world view. why is it so hard for you to just admit the basic science and take responsibility, own the fact, that you willingly consume a drug?

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-11 04:38:52)

too dumb to farm? no other food available? what do you think agrarian red-meat-eating people's fed their animals, dipshit? you do realize how much more resource intensive and costly an animal is to crop sustenance, right? no, western cultures did not eat cows, horses, or any other red meat source because they were 'too poor' to farm for food. most red meat throughout history wasn't farmed or raised at all, but hunted. meat was the preserve of royalty for most of european history.

christ you are thick as a plank.

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-11 04:56:28)

I'm starting to think part of the climate change crowd is turning into a death cult of sorts, predicting the doom of all life within the next century. Or worse, that humans will enter some blade runner universe in which all is extinct apart from us, our tech, and maggot farms. I understand that global warming is a seismic event but as it stands still the worst we can achieve is kill ourselves. The planet has been through some pretty rough events several times over and life reclaimed the surface each time again to re-establish its biodiverse glory.

Having said so I'm also increasingly pessimistic about the targets and proposed 'solutions'. To keep warming under 1,5C, we must cut global transport emissions by 80% AND everyone needs to stop driving and flying, everyone needs to adopt a vegetarian/vegan diet, we must stop buying tech products (mining, energy consumption), all energy output must be generated by solar and wind ... the image that one gets in their heads is people reverting to a mostly 1800s style of living. Rural, self-sustaining, never leaving your village and a farm of solar panels instead of cattle.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-11 10:14:17)

I'm not sure about that but look here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/climatechange/ … l_me_help/

There's even a scientific term called 'eco-anxiety' to describe the greta thunbergs among us.

Mass migration from the poorer and warmer parts of the world will destroy the European quality of life once climate change reaches a certain threshold. The only thing that can save Europe then is fire and blood.

uziq wrote:

too dumb to farm? no other food available? what do you think agrarian red-meat-eating people's fed their animals, dipshit? you do realize how much more resource intensive and costly an animal is to crop sustenance, right? no, western cultures did not eat cows, horses, or any other red meat source because they were 'too poor' to farm for food. most red meat throughout history wasn't farmed or raised at all, but hunted.

Well, dipshit, people in africa and the middle-east have been farming cattle for about 10,000 years, goats probably longer.
Not 'resource intensive' at all, since they can forage in largely unfarmable land.
So I very much doubt "most red meat throughout history wasn't farmed or raised at all, but hunted." is true at all.

meat was the preserve of royalty for most of european history.

Which is what I said

Dilbert_X wrote:

Otherwise its really an unnecessary luxury people consume because they want to.

christ you are thick as a plank.

You're an ignoramous.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-11-11 23:38:01)

oh so the 'red meat' that is ecologically destructive and unethical is goats wandering around on stray patches of land in africa? you sure do change your argument a lot.

the 'red meat danger' you talk about is obviously people in advanced-industrialized nations, like the united states, eating huge amounts of factory-farmed cattle, because it's cheap and plentiful. eating steak 4x a week is what gives you ass cancer and the planet a climate emergency, not african farmers making goat curry once every 3 weeks when it comes to slaughtering one of their 3 animals.

nice to know your 'too dumb to farm' comments were in fact, though, just another lame racist swipe at people who aren't even to blame or responsible for the ills you point to. 'hurr durr factory farming is an ecological disaster, the only people who eat red meat are savage african goatherds'. because that all makes total sense.

the vegan argument and discourse only makes sense in a specifically western context, i.e. one with developed nations and plentiful supply of food: one where to talk of 'ethical choices' is even relevant. red meat in the european context was always a luxury, often restricted to the upper orders, and certainly was never a sign of 'low intelligence' or 'being too dumb to farm'. they are costly animals to raise and keep. that your average western diet today can have plentiful supplies of cheap, affordable meat is due to factory-farming and industrialization. whatever your 'long history of meat consumption' has to do with this issue and argument, is beyond me. your argument for not eating meat in an advanced western country in 2020 is really because it's 'for african people who are too dumb to farm?' that's a pretty hot take, dilbert.

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-12 02:08:30)

No, dur, industrially farmed red meat with its high level of consumption is a problem.

Your statement "most red meat throughout history wasn't farmed or raised at all, but hunted." was wrong.
But it wasn't a problem because the population was so small.

Now we have a colossal population which can't be supported without diesel powered farming and which wants to eat about 50x as much red meat as is sensible for health and climate reasons, never mind the cruelty.

None of it really matters, we will reach a point where the population is so large one bean a day each would be more than the planet could handle.

You're a very confused fellow, I suggest you chill out at a wine bar for a little bit and gather your thoughts.

uziq wrote:

he argued that human population growth would always outpace supply, leading to wars over food. how often has that happened in the 20th century? biafra, maybe? as it turns out, the more 'advanced' nations in the world, those at the apex of malthus's little hierarchy, went to war with cataclysmic results despite living in a horn of plenty.

Well Africa has been in a more or less constant state of war and starvation, Europe was in a state of feudal starvation for millenia, Japan the same, wasn't a driver for WW2 to gain more farmland to give Germans a better life and diet? "Entire indigenous populations were decimated by starvation, allowing for their own agricultural surplus to feed Germany." Isn't that what the jews are doing now, grabbing their lebensraum from their better-watered neighbours?
Didn't europeans colonise america largely to gain farmland for themselves?

Have another go, do a research this time.

Of course no-one is right on everything, sometimes even I make the odd mistake - I'm right on this though.

You asked how many wars had been fought over food, the answer is probably most of them. Please, read a book.

The likelihood of achieving zero carbon food production is about zero, as I said, rice production is worse than all means of transport put together.

Personally I don't like meat, its unhealthy, not nutritious and brutally cruel so whats the point really?

Well since I haven't seen him acknowledge it at least in this threat, I'm going to assume Dilbert is a full on vegan with an expensive pill shelf full of vegan supplements like algae-based omega-3. If he drinks milk, or eats eggs, cheese, cream, fish (you'd be surprised at how many people aren't clear on fish), etc., he's part of the cruelty problem so often cited.