Who said capitalism isn’t a problem? I don’t see any comments claiming that.

Capitalism incentives the exploitation of humans and animals alike. It’s possible to recognize that both are a problem.

Its much weirder when leftists unironically believe that “animals are just animals, making them suffer is fine because they are inferior to me”, which is literally the supremacist thinking that racists and classists invoke to justify their mistreatment of other groups too.

20 years ago you could have said “Well, solar panels might be great for sustainability in theory, but the fossil fuel industry is so overwhelmingly powerful and solar panels so bad and expensive, it’s absolutely futile.”

Now, over 90% of added power plants are renewable, because there was at least some pressure to implement alternatives, and now they have matured enough to become economically viable on their own.

I think there are certain parallels to factory farming and plant-based alternatives + cultivated meat. We know that factory farming is very unsustainable, especially in terms of climate impact, resource use and zoonotic diseases (like bird flu and swine flu). These issues become ever more pressing as factory farming continues. We just won’t have a choice at some point but to switch to alternatives that are more sustainable, or everything goes to shit.

Creating demand for the alternatives funds their R&D and furthers their availability, which in turn leads to better products for lower prices, which makes further adoption much easier. Advancing the alternatives might have a much bigger impact than the mere reduction in meat consumption.

The more early adopters, the faster new technologies can advance. That’s true for every sustainable industry like solar energy, wind energy, battery storage, electric cars, and also meat alternatives.

That gets difficult when billion dollar industries are involved, especially multiple. Some politicians will oppose the corruption, but the corporations will just fund the campaign of other politicians that are willing to act in their interest.

Transparency and a vigilant civil society with consequences for scandals can mitigate that somewhat, to varying degrees. But ultimately there’s corruption in every government at every level of governance. Capital interests always find a way, unfortunately.

Imo it’s just really easy to switch stuff like burgers, nuggets, chicken wings, chicken breast etc. over to a (good) plant-based equivalent, I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything by doing that. It would already remove a lot of environmental destruction and animal suffering without people going fully vegetarian or vegan.

Not saying those efforts can’t be done in parallel, but subsidizing vat grown meat is necessary as well.

Yes, I agree with that and I’ll be happy when it gets affordable.

I have family members that are meat eaters, but they are often surprised how good some alternatives are nowadays when I give them new stuff to try. It’s true that some aren’t good, though. It really depends on the product. Most people haven’t tried the good ones in my experience, or don’t have them available in their region yet.

The official statistics here in Germany are that plant-based sales increased by about 15% year-on-year, and more than doubled over the last 5 years alone. It’s certainly catching on here.

Most vegetarians and vegans will be happy about positive changes. They aren’t the loudest ones, however. Similar to feminism, the most radical opinions get much more attention relative to reasonable ones. Especially by those opposed to it.

When I was a meat eater I also saw it as an all-or-nothing choice though, as if I need to fully commit all at once, which was daunting to me. Then I tried to be vegetarian for a week which was surprisingly easy. Then I had a foot in the door, decided to continue, and replaced eggs and milk as well in the following weeks.

Some people might have an easier time replacing single foods, like buying plant-based patties instead of meat ones, or just trying out a few plant-based alternatives, and that’s great too.

It’s still from factory farms with very cruel living conditions, which is why it can be so cheap.

Plant-based meat alternatives have also become much tastier, cheaper and available, especially over the last decade. Cultivated meat will be great for steaks and stuff, but for many things we already have replacements that are quite good.

Some store brand meat alternatives have already reached price parity with factory farmed meat here in Germany, and this will continue as the industry scales up.

They’re using the money they got from their customers to lobby politicians to keep doing business as usual. They have so much power because people vote with their dollar, for them, and not for sustainable alternatives.

Blaming politicians while continuing to fund these industries won’t lead to anything.

I think that the multiverse exist and we’re the 1% of timelines that the cold war didnt go hot.

Some of the most powerful people of the world work hard to get us closer.

It’s just a joke about how weird human culture is. I wonder how you infer anything about me as a person because of one silly joke? Only super weird people can notice weird cultural things and make jokes about it? Genuinely curious about your reasoning here.

To me its much weirder that it’s normalized to drink baby milk from another species, to the point that it seems completely normal, but each to their own.

It’s crazy how many people have never been weaned

But could the average hunter still hunt without the help of modern technology? Those who are entirely unable to do so are obviously not apex predators.

A lion can hunt any day without relying on a rifle, the vast majority of hunters could not.

So if you are smart enough to develop ranged weapons

Hunters that can build their own bows or spears and are able to hunt with them are genuine apex predators, that’s fair.

Those who are completely reliant on industrially produced high tech firearms bought in a store, and would be outcompeted by any house cat without them, are not.

So apex that even hunters need firearms because they’re not fit enough to hunt without them nowadays, and unable to improvise and use self made weapons like the og hunters did.

I guess people that drive a forklift are “apex powerlifters” too.

If trump knew he was going to die he’d probably claim that he was poisoned by the democrats to at least see some more violence committed for him.

I wonder if they were just too blinded by greed to act rationally or were under the impression that they can control Trump enough to keep the economy afloat.

The climate impact of the poorest is nothing compared to the pollution of rich countries anyways and the same is true for factory farming. The money will likely be used for much more environmentally destructive things now instead. There’s nothing positive in this from any progressive perspective.

And when it’s the only way to keep their family from starving, for example, people will consent in droves, securing supply.

I feel like if a child with a similar level of cognition as the cow harms other children, most people will say they have no moral agency yet, and will still see harvesting their leather as immoral.

There are two ways to resolve that inconsistency…

And the good thing is, when demand for (human) leather is higher than supply, people will just breed some more humans, keep them on farms, use their labor and sell their leather. With nothing going to waste, just the beautiful circle of life.

We’ve gotten quite efficient at doing that so there’s plenty opportunity to have more jobs, make a profit and to provide a product at an affordable price point, at the same time, all with human leather farms. Just have to compromise on welfare and sustainability step by step for more profit, but humans are already really great at ignoring such things when it’s advantageous to them, so most won’t ask any pesky questions anyways. We just have to normalize human leather (from factory farms) and everything will be great.