Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans • Hacker News Board

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#421

Post by myshpa » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 12:40 PM UTC

rcarr wrote: post #420

myshpa wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> otherwise I am prone to bouts of depression It sounds you're just suppresing your depression. Maybe you should direct your efforts to solving the problems causing you depression. It will catch you sooner or later, you know. > like the food chain doesn’t exist anymore We're at the top of the food chain, destroying everything below us. And we're no longer part of the nature, we're above it. If you feel you're like a…

> It sounds you're just suppresing your depression. Maybe you should direct your efforts to solving the problems causing you depression. It will catch you sooner or later, you know. Your arrogance is truly astounding. Not only do you know what’s best for my diet and lifestyle apparently you know what’s best for my mental health as well. I’m going to go eat a burger today just because of your attitude. Good luck with…

> It sounds ... maybe ...

I don't know what's good for you, and don't pretend to know, I'm just speaking from my own experience.

About plant-based diet, I'm just able to comprehend and accept the facts and modify my own behaviour where needed.

> I’m going to go eat a burger today just because of your attitude

No, you're going to eat it because you value the taste and your own convenience above everything else.

> Good luck with your crusade.

Good luck with your gym buddies, hope they'll appreciate the gains.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#422

Post by eloff » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 12:49 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #102

slashdev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! Probably similar numbers for concrete. It's exponential growth. The thing about exponential growth is it can't continue for too long. As observers of Moore's Law will understand, eventually you run out of resources or into other physical limits. However, I'm quite confident that we can keep innovating and growth will continue in one form or another. I don't think Elon Musk is correct that human population will c…

> All it takes is one subgroup to keep reproducing above the replacement rate, and after enough generations they will come to dominate and overall growth will continue. Consequently, religion is going to thrive. Everyone else stops reproducing once they reach a certain standard of living.

Perhaps that's the point. Religion is universal across human cultures, it must serve some, as yet unknown, evolutionary purpose to be so universally widespread. I doubt that historical purpose was higher birth rates, but it certainly is now. Since it seems to grant such a huge advantage to evolutionary fitness, it will thrive, even dominate.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#423

Post by Schroedingersat » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #408

Schroedingersat wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yep, fossil fuel based fertilizers and other chemicals aren't going away. Yes that sentence was definitely about the fossil fuel bit and not the land use of cattle vs other protein sources. Try a piece of intellectual honesty. How much human edible protein can be produced on an acre of land being used for corn and soy cow feed? Now how much on the same land with the same fertiliser input with a combination of plant…

> Yes that sentence was definitely about the fossil fuel bit and not the land use of cattle vs other protein sources. You directed it generally. Now you're upset that I replied to what you wrote. > Try a piece of intellectual honesty. How much human edible protein can be produced on an acre of land being used for corn and soy cow feed? Now how much on the same land with the same fertiliser input with a combination of…

> You directed it generally. Now you're upset that I replied to what you wrote.

More dishonesty.

> I don't know the numbers. Chicken is a very cheap source of protein, much cheaper than a huge range of plant based protein actually. Are we moving the bar for sinning to "thou shalt not consume any plant protein more expensive than chicken"? How about bugs? You have to kill them to eat them, right? Or does the holy book have some kind of complicated sin taxonomy here?

Yes. That's the entire point. Grain fed factory cattle farming is cruel and unsustainable. Option two is much less cruel and can be done for the same cost with solar derived hydrogen and takes a fraction of the land. There are organic methods that would see the same yield as option two with a slightly larger fraction of the land and would do less damage to the soil.

> That does not support your false claim that these countries do not have basic animal right or environmental regulation though.

A law that is never enforced and which whistleblowing of is criminalised is not holding anyone to any standard. I never claimed there was no law. I correctly claimed that farms were not held to account.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#424

Post by rcarr » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

myshpa wrote: post #421

rcarr wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds you're just suppresing your depression. Maybe you should direct your efforts to solving the problems causing you depression. It will catch you sooner or later, you know. Your arrogance is truly astounding. Not only do you know what’s best for my diet and lifestyle apparently you know what’s best for my mental health as well. I’m going to go eat a burger today just because of your attitude. Good luck with…

> It sounds ... maybe ... I don't know what's good for you, and don't pretend to know, I'm just speaking from my own experience. About plant-based diet, I'm just able to comprehend and accept the facts and modify my own behaviour where needed. > I’m going to go eat a burger today just because of your attitude No, you're going to eat it because you value the taste and your own convenience above everything else. > Good…

You literally don’t give one fuck about getting people to reduce their meat intake. All you care about is that you get to maintain the pedestal of holiness you sit upon in your own head. Your entire comment history is just you arguing with people about why everyone should be vegan. You’re a sad individual.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#425

Post by taneq » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #343

grecy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I was Justin the town that has the worlds largest shipping port by tonnage, all of it iron ore. I bet you’ll never guess - you’ve never heard of it. The city and surrounds makes Mordor look nice.

Brazil? Australia? Where?

LMGTFY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...

Surprise, it's Shanghai.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#426

Post by taneq » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

pha392 wrote: post #247

myshpa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100.000 years ago ... 20 mil. tonnes of carbon 10.000 years ago ... 15 mil. tonnes of carbon 100 years ago ... 10 mil. tonnes of carbon now ... 3 mil. tonnes of carbon https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/04/Decline-of-wild-m... First 5 mil. tonnes took 90.000 year. Next 5 mil. 9.900 years. Next 7 mil. 100 years. 3 mil. remain, most of the megafauna is already gone. If we continue this trend, in 30 years there'll…

I'm good enough with the farm animals Why should I switch to plant based?

I'm not them and I'm not telling you what to do, but meat typically takes ~10x the resources to feed one human compared with plant based food.

Whether you think this means we should eat plants or we should have 10% as many humans is an open question.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#427

Post by mahogany » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #308

fnimick wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You can just accept that meat is a human food. Animals die for it. The natural world involves animals eating other animals. If you have to kill male calves because you're on a dairy farm then you kill the male calves. It's really not that shocking.

> The natural world involves animals eating other animals.

A "natural world" argument will always be weak. The natural world also involves rape, infanticide, and a general lack of morality. A "feature" of humans is that we can reason about, assign morality to, and ultimately move beyond some things that occur in the natural world.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#428

Post by Spivak » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

fnimick wrote: post #254

Spivak wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course people are going to be proud, the horrors of capitalism aside, we’ve completely eliminated hunger in the US (not implying we’re the only place). Not one single person is starving because we are unable to feed them. And we’re able to feed everyone with the absolute top tier of food desired by humans. It used to be an event only for special occasions to slaughter your lifestock. The only people who got a stea…

"We're destroying the planet with unfathomable cruelty, but at least we get to eat what we want!" This is not the accomplishment you think it is. This is absolute depravity on a societal scale and the fact that we're all so okay with it is horrifying.

Okay we have to take a step back here, things are allowed to good and bad. I am in no way whatsoever trying to downplay the bad parts of our meat industry. I feel like there's a tendency in online discussions that if you ever point out any positive aspect of something that someone doesn't like overall, then it's taken as a full endorsement of that thing. Clearly I did not admonish the industry enough to make that clear.

We're not going to get anywhere unless we can agree broadly that humans like eating meat. For all of human history it's been the most prized food and sits at the center of a lot of our rituals -- ham for Christmas, lamb for Easter, turkey for Thanksgiving, pork for New Years. I'm not assigning any value judgement to this. And so reaching a point where this thing that previously had to be savored because it was expensive and/or only available after the harvest now being a commodity is an accomplishment. You might not like the manifested will of humanity but we nonetheless did it and that's impressive in and of itself.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#429

Post by myshpa » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

rcarr wrote: post #424

myshpa wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds ... maybe ... I don't know what's good for you, and don't pretend to know, I'm just speaking from my own experience. About plant-based diet, I'm just able to comprehend and accept the facts and modify my own behaviour where needed. > I’m going to go eat a burger today just because of your attitude No, you're going to eat it because you value the taste and your own convenience above everything else. > Good…

You literally don’t give one fuck about getting people to reduce their meat intake. All you care about is that you get to maintain the pedestal of holiness you sit upon in your own head. Your entire comment history is just you arguing with people about why everyone should be vegan. You’re a sad individual.

It's a pedestal of sadness and desperation, not holiness. You're wrong again.

You know, it's a viewpoint that's been desperately ignored in HN comment threads in recent years, that's why I decided to start commenting on it after almost 10 years of lurking.

I may make some people very angry, to the point of personal attacks. That's fine.

If you plant a seed, it may grow. We'll see. Better than doing nothing and watching the world burn.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#430

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #264

BurningFrog wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't really "consume" the steel. It doesn't disappear.

Iron actually is a consumable in some processes. For example, it burns pretty well. So it gets used in thermic lances. I'm not sure if anyone bothers trying to collect the resulting iron oxides and recycle those.

OK, I'll count burnt rusted iron as consumed. But we were talking about steel.