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Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

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Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#191

Post by verisimi »

chinupbuttercup wrote: post #112
verisimi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't shoot myself in the foot. Someone around here did clear the forests for farmland... and people are doing ok. Its not that everyone died, as the comment I responded to said.

To substantiate your point, I was thinking about deforestation for farming in Indiana (where I live) and Ohio last week and learned that Indiana was 90% forest until taxes got in the way. It's crazy that something as silly as taxes can cause most of your forests to become farmland. https://woodlandsteward.squarespace.com/storage/past-issues/... We are still alive. I wish we had the forests, but we have survived and t…

Yeah, it's crazy to insentivise deforestation. But people need to eat. And, depending on who you listen to, there is even some evidence that the rainforest may have been a cultivated environment itself, in the dim and distant past.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#192

Post by debacle »

guhidalg wrote: post #136
debacle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter point, livestock are a critical part of the regenerative ag movement. Our property was farmland for 150 years before it basically ran out of nutrients in the 1970s. After one year of a pretty good harvest (not great) in 2019, we couldn't grow anything. One home testing kit later, and we found that there were virtually no minerals in the soil. Fast forward five years and between heavy composting and gener…

Where did the feed for the animals come from?

Kitchen scraps and forage mostly. We did add some feed during the winter because we miscalculated our needs.

We aren't doing anything intensive, and we don't have chickens or pigs. I did the math, and it doesn't really seem like you can have chickens or pigs just range, you have to supplement their diet in some way. Geese on the other hand are like...the best animals for regenerative ag, maybe next to sheep.

We will probably get chickens at some point (unless we miraculously can range enough ducks for eggs), but we will have to buy in their feed.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#193

Post by giantg2 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #186
giantg2 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Throwing them in jail isn't improving their lives - what framework are you using to pick losers & winners of the people you help vs hurt?" Seems to be the combined wishes of the constituents. Same theory applies to most topics. You can see this in how different states poll on firearms (or abortion, etc) and the types of laws they have on that topic. As an extreme example, the same person can carry the same gun in tw…

In a representative democracy, the will of the population isn't so directly represented in the laws that are held. Given the role money and lobbying have in politics, there's no way to conclude that any given law has the broad support of the people vs "this isn't important enough for me to get worked up over vs issues that are more immediately pressing to me" or even "powerful economic powers are acting to sway the o…

"Given the role money and lobbying have in politics, there's no way to conclude that any given law has the broad support of the people"

That's why I mentioned polling and gave generally verifiable examples.

Yes, money can sway the legislature or even the views of constituents. And yes, most topics have a large number of people who don't care because they don't know or the topic doesn't affect them. However, polling and other research can show how the population views the topic pertaining to the law and the culture in general.

"criminalizing speech for something that should arguably be a civil matter at best."

This is factually incorrect. The speech portion of this would be the sharing of the picture. The part that is criminalized is trespassing and recording to get that picture. The civil part would be stuff like libel or slander.

"So the idea that the law is purely an expression of the wishes of the constituents is nice but not borne out in the structure of modern democratic governments"

I never said it was a pure expression. You can clearly see that property rights are a part of the culture of most western states. Yes, those laws were influenced by the wealthy over generations, but it's now become part of the culture.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#194

Post by augusto-moura »

block_dagger wrote: post #28

[flagged]

That doesn't sound like a solution, and it is not attainable at all unless we are talking about thousands upon thousands of years. Meat is culturally important, and only a small percentage of the global population is willing to give up on it.

PS: When you talk about mammals only, are you still pro-consumption of fish and avians?

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#195

Post by mytailorisrich »

whimsicalism wrote: post #188
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're gonna chop and burn it down either way, it'll either be for cattle or if you make eating meat illegal they'll chop and burn it for something else like palm oil. Like it's obvious the people who own and control that land don't care about it anywhere near as much as you do so if you want them to stop chopping it down essentially you're gonna need to start paying them not to. Just seems naive to think stopping s…

If you take away one of the profitable reasons to chop down the Amazon, it’ll reduce people doing it at the margin - that is simply facts. > Poor people from eating meat Yeah and a carbon tax will stop poor people from using as much gas, etc. - if we want to solve climate change we cannot just insulate all poor people from externality pricing.

At global scale we can't solve the environmental crisis in general (climate is only one aspect) and solve poverty at the same time with 10 billion people.

Solving the environmental crisis means reducing our consumption of resources. Solving global poverty means a significant increase in consumption of resources.

So the only way forward is to let the global population decrease ASAP so that we can both live well and preserve the planet.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#196

Post by mschuster91 »

tengbretson wrote: post #182
walthamstow wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless my understanding of 'misrepresentation' is incorrect, and I'm neither a lawyer nor an American, but I find the law to outlaw basic journalism, including and especially the below section which seems to specifically outlaw undercover journalism. What's reasonable about that? > (c) Obtains employment with an agricultural production facility by force, threat, or misrepresentation with the intent to cause economic…

If the definition of undercover journalism is simply lying about ones identity in order to publish secrets with the intent to cause injury to another party, then yes, absolutely, I'm in favor of outlawing it, and a 1 year max seems generous.

There's a difference between publishing actual secrets and publishing evidence of someone breaking the law.

We're seeing with Boeing what happens when law-breaking is swept under the rug for too long.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#197

Post by psunavy03 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #180
samatman wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah yes its fine to kill them Yes. Fundamentally, most people, including myself, believe that it's fine to kill animals and eat them. There's no hypocrisy here, disgusting or otherwise. You have your own concept of morality, I have mine, yours is considered extreme by society at large, mine is a shared moral belief of the great majority. That's all that's going on here.

most people also do not care about factory farming. think the claim is that it is hypocrisy if you care about the animal suffering when you will just kill it at the end

It's not hypocrisy to believe that a) animals can be killed for their meat, but also b) they should be treated humanely until then and killed as humanely as feasible.

That's the great thing about human intelligence; we can ensure a humane kill of our prey as opposed to ripping it apart with fangs and claws like other predators.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#198

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #181
giantg2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"wow, one year in jail just for trespassing" Many western states have much stricter views on property rights and trespassing than the coasts. The penalties are generally higher even if not dealing with this specific scenario. Even regular ID trespassing law can carry 6mo-1y jail time depending on the circumstances, etc. One often overlooked thing that isn't particularly applicable in this case is the biosecurity aspe…

in other states, these penalties only exist for slaughterhouses, if you broke into a Beyond meat factory and filmed you wouldn’t be eligible for same penalties

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Most of the agricultural trespassing, disruption, etc laws don't just apply to slaughterhouses, but also include the farms and such. Many states have general secret recording that apply to nearly all scenarios if you're referring to recording. If you're talking about just trespass, if you "broke" into a beyond meat facility you would in fact face similar penalties in other western states with similar property rights culture. I believe even the ID law would result in 6-12mo maximum jail if you broke into the factory (might even qualify as burglary with higher penalties depending on specifics).

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#199

Post by DoughnutHole »

tengbretson wrote: post #182
walthamstow wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless my understanding of 'misrepresentation' is incorrect, and I'm neither a lawyer nor an American, but I find the law to outlaw basic journalism, including and especially the below section which seems to specifically outlaw undercover journalism. What's reasonable about that? > (c) Obtains employment with an agricultural production facility by force, threat, or misrepresentation with the intent to cause economic…

If the definition of undercover journalism is simply lying about ones identity in order to publish secrets with the intent to cause injury to another party, then yes, absolutely, I'm in favor of outlawing it, and a 1 year max seems generous.

Divulging someone's secrets isn't intrinsically unethical. If I reveal the secret that you've murdered someone that's not a secret that you ever had any right to keep.

Likewise these "secrets" aren't something valuable like an algorithm that's in the interest of society to protect. The secret is their monstrous and unethical practices which lower their sales when their prospective consumers learn about them. Keeping it secret doesn't protect competition, it just hides something from consumers that would allow them to make a more informed choice.

Muckraker journalism like this is one of the main reasons the US has regulations for things like food safety and working conditions. Should a journalist go to jail for revealing that a slaughterhouse is hiring 8 year olds, or that there is a mass contamination of a food product that the company still intends to sell? Those can be "secrets" too.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#200

Post by Gud »

whimsicalism wrote: post #180
samatman wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah yes its fine to kill them Yes. Fundamentally, most people, including myself, believe that it's fine to kill animals and eat them. There's no hypocrisy here, disgusting or otherwise. You have your own concept of morality, I have mine, yours is considered extreme by society at large, mine is a shared moral belief of the great majority. That's all that's going on here.

most people also do not care about factory farming. think the claim is that it is hypocrisy if you care about the animal suffering when you will just kill it at the end

That's a very bold statement. I believe most people "care" about the welfare about the animals they eat.
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