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Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#251

Post by sensanaty »

peterashford wrote: post #194
ars wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ancient people did not see animals are beings with feeling, they were seen as useful production machines. It's only in modern times that we have the luxury of taking the animal's feeling into account at all. I'm sure you would want even more consideration for the animals, but it's much better today than it was.

How do you know that "ancient people" never thought of animals as having feelings? Seems an extraordinarily broad claim given all the cultures and ages that encompass "ancient people"

I mean even my own currently-alive ancestors (farmers, the majority of them) don't look at livestock as living, conscious beings. They obviously care for each animal and give them a swift and as-painless-as-possible butchering when the time comes, but they're not the bleeding hearts that many people these days are, they're mostly just vehicles for vital necessities.

I don't find it difficult to imagine my great-great-great-great-(fill in the appropriate number of greats here to qualify for ancient ancestors) grandmother butchering a pig and not really giving it a second thought at all, having grown up on a farm myself. Hell, my current grandma is probably much gentler and gives the pork a much better time than my ancient ancestors did

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#252

Post by corinroyal »

LemmyInThePub wrote: post #233
oregano wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our ancestors didn’t abuse animals on the scale we do now.

> Our ancestors didn’t abuse animals on the scale we do now. It's sad this type of trolling is becoming tolerated on HN.

How is this trolling? The development of factory farms where living creatures are so inhumanely mistreated at scale is a very recent development.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#253

Post by thaumasiotes »

raffraffraff wrote: post #242
thaumasiotes wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the poor families in our part of the world owned their own house and a plot of land. Daily bread was the big issue! Owning your own land is how you go from being a poor bachelor to being a poor family. It is definitely not the case in general in the ancient world that poor people are likely to own land. (Though also: were there no Travelers in rural Ireland?)

Even when I was growing up in the 80s the poorest family I knew owned their own home. It was an ancient cottage with an extension built on. The reason they were poor was that they had 7 kids and one very low income. I remember a photo of a bunch of us, aged 11, outside the school. The kid from that family was wearing a distinctive sweater with a band name from 8 years previous. Home-knitted by his mother. It has seve…

There are two things going on:

1. The United States has a tiny population relative to its supply of land.

2. Poor families are already successful. They are very far from the bottom of the economic scale.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#255

Post by tessierashpool »

snowpid wrote: post #241
tessierashpool wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think our ancestors had the luxury of being vegan. on the evolutionary scale, this is provably false. all the great apes are vegetarian. we have flat, grinding teeth like cows, and long intestinal tracts like cows too -- not the quick, short intestinal tracts of predators or their sharp, pointy teeth. strictly speaking, not even cows are vegan. not absolutely, perfectly, and totally. one of the weird side eff…

Chimpazees do hunting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Hunting " their sharp, pointy teeth." Humen can create weapons and fire. No need for long teeth. Australopithecus did eat animals. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus#Diet " Its a common misconception among vegetarians that humen were originally vegetarians. Quiet the opposite is true. we have evidence for hunter gathering societies since 1.…

1.8M years is a drop in the bucket on an evolutionary timeline

Humen can create weapons and fire. No need for long teeth.

sure. is that evolution or technology?

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#256

Post by AlecSchueler »

sensanaty wrote: post #251
peterashford wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that "ancient people" never thought of animals as having feelings? Seems an extraordinarily broad claim given all the cultures and ages that encompass "ancient people"

I mean even my own currently-alive ancestors (farmers, the majority of them) don't look at livestock as living, conscious beings. They obviously care for each animal and give them a swift and as-painless-as-possible butchering when the time comes, but they're not the bleeding hearts that many people these days are, they're mostly just vehicles for vital necessities. I don't find it difficult to imagine my great-great…

I think it's a mistake to look at cultural trends across the last century and to extrapolate from there without any broader research.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#257

Post by dukeyukey »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #196
civilitty wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the consequence of the food industry becoming hyperindustrialized in which uncommon ingredients and "off-cuts" no longer fit with the goal of pursuing economy of scale. Ultraprocessed food is efficient to produce and distribute and formulated to specifically target innate human cravings (high sugar/sodium/carb/fat) in ways that were not possible before. Hyperindustrialization has done the exact opposite! The m…

Why do you think people in North America no longer see offal (or seaweed) as edible food for humans despite the opposite? It's because of hyperindustrialization has distorted how these people view food ingredients.

I don't think British food is any less industrialised, but seaweed (local, not just in Asian food) is still available here, and stuff like kidneys and liver is downright popular! Even corner shops often sell steak and kidney pies, or a microwave meal of liver and onions.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#258

Post by snowpid »

tessierashpool wrote: post #255
snowpid wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chimpazees do hunting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Hunting " their sharp, pointy teeth." Humen can create weapons and fire. No need for long teeth. Australopithecus did eat animals. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus#Diet " Its a common misconception among vegetarians that humen were originally vegetarians. Quiet the opposite is true. we have evidence for hunter gathering societies since 1.…

1.8M years is a drop in the bucket on an evolutionary timeline Humen can create weapons and fire. No need for long teeth. sure. is that evolution or technology?

1.) Can you just admit that your original claims are debunked by wikipedia? 2.) Of course 1.8 Million years matter in Evolution. Please make you familiar with the Wikipedia article instead being a pseudo sceptical.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#259

Post by j33zusjuice »

corinroyal wrote: post #252
LemmyInThePub wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our ancestors didn’t abuse animals on the scale we do now. It's sad this type of trolling is becoming tolerated on HN.

How is this trolling? The development of factory farms where living creatures are so inhumanely mistreated at scale is a very recent development.

They probably misunderstood scale to mean something like “in the ways,” not more literally “by the numbers.” I’ve seen people suggest that we’re more savage and brutal towards animals these days on other websites, and I think that’s an absurd conclusion to draw because I don’t think we have sufficient evidence for it. It seems unquestionable that we’re doing it to more animals, though. There are more people eating far more animals these days. I suppose some might argue they aren’t suffering or something? That’s crazy, to me.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#260

Post by tessierashpool »

snowpid wrote: post #258
tessierashpool wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.8M years is a drop in the bucket on an evolutionary timeline Humen can create weapons and fire. No need for long teeth. sure. is that evolution or technology?

1.) Can you just admit that your original claims are debunked by wikipedia? 2.) Of course 1.8 Million years matter in Evolution. Please make you familiar with the Wikipedia article instead being a pseudo sceptical.

sure, ok. I misspoke when I said all the great apes are vegetarian. in reality, all the great apes are and were mostly vegetarian.

idk if that's really worth the effort, but I admit it, you made a point.

edit: to everybody else, I apologize for the passive-aggressive vibe, I just don't see where else this (requested!) reply can really go.

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