All "haha, but it's tasty!!!!" jokes aside, and even ethics and morality aside (which is tough, because we cause a LOT of suffering here), growing meat is just incredibly inefficient. We have to sustain so much additional biological machinery just to chop off some muscle tissue at the end, even if we assume everything of the cow will be used eventually, it's just incredibly wasteful.
The problem is that we don't factor in the externalities adequately in the price of most products.
Building and operating an amusement park is also incredibly inefficient just to get a giggle. If every product would be priced in a way that includes all externalities you'd see a shrink in the industries with the highest (negative) impact.
I'm setting aside the Pandora's box discussion about allowing only the rich the luxury of destroying the environment.
I know someone who works in agriculture reform and the lobby against any change is tough
Like they get outspend to an incredible degree. You are not choosing, they are telling you what to choose. It doesn’t mean change isn’t possible but you are swimming against a powerful current called Lobbying and Marketing/Influencing.
Something oft forgotten: cheese made from cow milk is actually really inefficient too. Chicken and pork meat rank lower than cheese from cow milk in environmental impact.
By this approach, life is inherently wasteful. Resource use is not only necessary, but a human right. Deciding for others what is and isn't worth the use is immoral.
What kind of statement is that? Is it my human right to blow CFCs into the air? Maybe, yet we generally disallow that because it would ruin the fun for everyone else. Your right to use resources ends where my impact begins.
Additionally, pointing out inefficiencies is a good thing and something we should do more of, because that's how we optimize.
CFCs are prohibited, like other toxic substances, because they are unequivocally detrimental to everyone. Energy use, agriculture, and husbandry are not.
> Your right to use resources ends where my impact begins.
No, it doesn't. If it did, no-one would be able to zero any resources as the planet is a zero-sum resource pool.
I have the right to use resources even where it impacts other. The limits we place on resource use are and should be only in extremis where that impact reaches a level that is particularly harmful.
Many agricultural practices meet this condition and have been banned. Many more should be. However, that does not extend to dictating that resources cannot be used for husbandry.
Following your logic, I should be able to prohibit you using computers recreationally, prevent you from travelling in powered vehicles, prevent you from having children. Each of those has a far higher contribution to resource use than husbandry.
> Additionally, pointing out inefficiencies is a good thing and something we should do more of, because that's how we optimize.
Life is not an optimisation problem. Don't waste yours approaching it this way.
You're conflating acknowledging inefficiency with advocating for totalitarian control. I pointed out that meat production is wasteful that's just a fact. Your response is to claim I must therefore support banning computers and children?!
That's not how optimization works. We can improve systems without descending into authoritarian micromanagement. By your logic, we should never fix anything because someone might take it too far.
> I pointed out that meat production is wasteful that's just a fact.
There are wasteful (and horrific) forms of husbandry, but it's not a fact that meat production is wasteful. That's an opinion that's contingent on the assertion that meat is not worth the resources used for production.
> Your response is to claim I must therefore support banning computers and children?!
Yes, I am showing you the absurdity of your statement. Exactly the same logic can be used (and is used by those with extremist opinions like your own) to show that reproduction, computing, travel, medicine, art is wasteful, because it's subjective whether any result is worth the resources required.
> That's not how optimization works. We can improve systems without descending into authoritarian micromanagement. By your logic, we should never fix anything because someone might take it too far.
To be clear, your statements above are already taking it too far by declaring for others what they should be able to spend their resources on.
The fallacy here is that we're somehow, magically, required to move on to more extreme forms of the same logic.
No we're not. We can decide to stop at any time. We don't have to be logically consistent in how we decide rules. And, in fact, we aren't.
Consider, for example, free speech restrictions in the US. You can't yell "fire!" in a theater. Why not? Because it incites distress, and can cause harm.
By that logic, shouldn't we also ban all mean words? I mean, they might incite distress, and they can cause emotional harm, and even physical harm if someone gets too offended.
But wait, wait... isn't "mean", in it of itself, subjective? So then doesn't this mean that this same logic could go for any arbitrary words, technically? Okay, then we should ban all words, right?
No. Wrong. We shouldn't do that. Everything is a case-by-case basis. WE decide when to continue and when to give it up. Not you, not logic.
> The fallacy here is that we're somehow, magically, required to move on to more extreme forms of the same logic.
Yes. It's inherently subjective whether animal husbandry is worth the input resources and each person can decide for themselves is it's worth it or wasteful, as with every other example (travel, medicine, etc).
> By that logic, shouldn't we also ban all mean words? I mean, they might incite distress, and they can cause emotional harm, and even physical harm if someone gets too offended.
Yes, again you're agreeing with me. We collectively choose the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and practices. We have speed limits but don't ban cars, we regulate e-waste disposal but don't prohibit computers, and we can and should forbid cruel and environmentally damaging practises in husbandry, but not ban meat production.
The person I'm replying to is making the opposite argument, that husbandry is inherently wasteful and therefore should be subject to regulation. That is the is–ought fallacy, which I pointed out using reducto ad absurdum.
