Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

usda.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 219 posts

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#161

Post by ben_w »

andsoitis wrote: post #64
Noumenon72 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big mistake.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

While I am a vegetarian and thus am an existence proof, there's multiple different ways in which something can be "essential".

Anyone going "let's stop a thing today which will messes with a non-trivial fraction of our food production in a few years' time, without preparing either that food sector nor the dietary choices of the consumers before that happens" is definitely making a high-risk strategic choice.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#162

Post by chris_wot »

tptacek wrote: post #93
smallmancontrov wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was president in 2020 again?

You get that there was a president between 2020 and now, right? Nobody is sticking up for Trump; they're just saying, this particular bad thing isn't a DOGE outcome.

If this particular bad thing was bad before DOGE, then it’s far worse under DOGE. It’s a particularly ridiculous argument.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#163

Post by chrisweekly »

ModernMech wrote: post #132
alephnerd wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. It is mainstream economic and political opinion to regulate in some manner to reduce market consolidation since the 1940s with the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index.

I think necessarily. I don’t think it’s possible to devise a capitalist system that doesn’t devolve into oligarchic control. Markets can’t be regulated like the theory wants, because capitalists just use their wealth to take over the politicians. They are able to do this because they control so much wealth. To prevent this hack, you’d have to take control of capital away from the capitalists, thus defeating the core…

> "capital away from the capitalists"

or find other ways to reduce the influence of money on public elections -- see eg Prof. Lessig (of "Creative Commons" fame) and his writings on "Fix Congress First" which led to Rootstrikers.org

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#164

Post by HillRat »

alephnerd wrote: post #97
SoftTalker wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.

That's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy and Cattle industry in the US [1]. 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply chain. But because they control the supply chain, distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can s…

Packer and ag consolidation is a huge problem, but the underlying issue here is climate change and long-lasting droughts; some of the issues with herd size — the smallest since about 1950 — come from COVID hangover when cows weren’t getting processed and price-per-head plummeted, but the immediate problem is that ranchers can’t support large herds due to lack of rain and cost of feed. We’re looking at long-term cost trends that are unlikely to reverse or even be significantly ameliorated anytime soon.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#165

Post by cogman10 »

tptacek wrote: post #95
cogman10 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point. The cost to fight this back will definitely exponentially increase.

Ok, but where did you get that Nov '24 date from? You just agreed with a comment that falsified that claim.

An article I read mentioned that Nov '24 is when the flies were spotted in Mexico. I incorrectly assumed that meant that is when they breached the panama boarder.

So I agree with the commenter that falsified my claim because they are correct, the date of breach was earlier and the time to react was then.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#166

Post by tptacek »

cogman10 wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but where did you get that Nov '24 date from? You just agreed with a comment that falsified that claim.

An article I read mentioned that Nov '24 is when the flies were spotted in Mexico. I incorrectly assumed that meant that is when they breached the panama boarder. So I agree with the commenter that falsified my claim because they are correct, the date of breach was earlier and the time to react was then.

Gotcha. Thanks! I was just curious.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#167

Post by echelon »

croes wrote: post #60
delichon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course rape is natural. Orangutans, ducks, geese, and certain dolphin species also rape. That's a problem if you think "natural" justifies human behavior, but why would it?

Read the edit of parent. And I wrote „just nature“ because parent used it’s nature as a justification. Hence the moral part.

We evolved to eat. We did not evolve to rape.

Eating, fundamentally, reduces some other organism's population. All of nature does it.

We consume life and the byproducts of life. Even the high energy gas exchange we rely upon is 100% a waste product that we consume.

Life is fundamentally about consuming and repurposing the materials of others.

You don't need to have sex. You need to eat to survive.

Our bodies are naturally adapted to consume wildlife. It is the most natural state for our body plan and biochemistry.

Our body cannot make all of the amino acids and metabolites it needs to be healthy. If technology and food fortification vanished one day, we would be forced to eat meat to survive. Non-meat diets are only enabled by technology. Without it, we would not even be having this discussion.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#168

Post by throwup238 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #88
andsoitis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.

Maybe for a USDA Prime ribeye or tenderloin at Bristol Farms or something.

If you go to an ethnic store like Arabic halaal markets, ribeye steaks can be had for less than $10 a pound (but they’re ungraded). In one of the highest CoL areas in Southern California. Costco USDA Prime ribeyes are $20/pound and ribeye rounds are $25/pound.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#169

Post by dang »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #14
kriops wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Implied) invalid generalization, or confirmation bias. This is a good reason to not eat that particular meat. In general, however, meat is an S-tier source of nutrition, vitamins, and minerals.

[flagged]

You've been breaking the site guidelines egregiously in many different threads. If you keep this up, we're going to ban you.

I don't want to ban you because you've also posted good things, but we badly need you to fix this. We've already asked you once (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44751806).

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#170

Post by bspammer »

paulcole wrote: post #152
xipho wrote: post #141

Very hard to escape biology unless you invest in understanding it. Ticks, mosquito-born diseases, agricultural pests, they don't care about AI, politics, or space-races or geo political boundaries. We, on the other hand, require life to go on, it's asynchronous. This is why natural history collections, and taxonomists are going to be more critical than ever, at some point we'll need to re-invest in knowing what's out…

In what is it “asynchronous”?

I'm sure they meant asymmetrical
Post reply on HN