I agree. The rich need to downgrade their high-ecological-impact lifestyle into a sustainable lifestyle. All humans going vegan would help.

I like meat, but you are right -- I / we should switch to vegetarian / vegan diets.

In a study published this week in Environmental Research Letters, researchers found that the food system was responsible for as much as 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

This makes sense. One of our appalling practices is growing corn for alcohol to add to gasoline. That aside, animals (including ourselves) are not all that great at converting plant matter to animal protein:

Feed conversion
(feed/edible weight)
4.5 for chicken
9.4 for pork
25 for beef

I understand that you enjoy the taste of meat. Most people do. We evolved as omnivores. I am pleased that you see how going vegan would help the environment. It would also help people and the sentient organisms we consume.

The rich need to downgrade their high-ecological-impact lifestyle — Truth Seeker

Absolutely. The rich -- the wealthiest people -- consume a very disproportionate share of goods. It isn't the they eat so much -- the rich are more likely to be svelte than obese. It's their consumption of materials that matter -- the 30,000 to 50,000 square foot mansions lavishly furnished, the landscaping, the cars, the planes, the yachts, the chrome, the plastic, and the petroleum it all takes.

Obviously their assets should be liquidated as soon as possible -- like, today.

We don't want to leave out the impact of military activities, or exploiting space with thousands of rocket launches burning fuel in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

Then there is the dominance of the automobile and the absence of effective public transit (especially in the US).

How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion? — Truth Seeker

We might have different beliefs about the current market value of a house, for instance, but we can list the house for sale in order to find out whether our beliefs correspond to its current market value. What is fact and what is opinion in this case is not something we decide but find out.

There are more than 8.1 billion humans on Earth and our conflicting ideologies, religions, worldviews and values divide us. — Truth Seeker

There are many more things that unite us as living organisms than there are divisive ideas etc. The ideas of power mad ideologues, preachers, poets etc. are irrelevant compared to the wonders of nature.

I worry that we will destroy ourselves and all the other species with our conflicts. — Truth Seeker

Possibly, yet never before in human history has there been so much public attention on sustainability and global climate change. Many of us reduce damage by avoiding unsustainable products, food, and life styles, many businesses are desperately trying to green wash their unsustainable products or replace them with better alternatives.

I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better. — Truth Seeker

1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. Pizza tastes good is an opinion. What needs to be worked out here? Look at the philosophers who study the nature of facts, do they seem to get on with each other better? :cool:

I agree with you.

I agree with you. When I said

I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better

I was thinking of things such as religions and politics. We have murdered a lot of people over the last five thousand years over religions and politics and we are still at it. We need to end our violence before it ends us.

↪BC
I understand that you enjoy the taste of meat. Most people do. We evolved as omnivores. I am pleased that you see how going vegan would help the environment. It would also help people and the sentient organisms we consume. — Truth Seeker

Meat-eating humans were never a threat to the natural ecosystem, until modern science/technology began to work contrary to evolutionary selection : a> partly by allowing "unfit" humans to survive long enough to reproduce ; also b> artificially forcing nature to produce more human food than normal ; and c> resulting in an exponentially expanding human population that is overwhelming nature's ability to support life, on a globe of finite resources.

What I'm saying is that technology is the root of the food-supply problem, not meat-eating. A carnivorous lifestyle didn't un-balance the biosphere, as long as the vegetarians could out-breed the predators. One ideal solution to the world-food problem is for carnivores & omnivores (e.g. dogs, cats, and humans) to magically de-evolve into herbivores. That might be the Luddite answer to the (factual?) food insufficiency, and would incidentally end the Moral Evil (opinion) of wolves, lions, and humans killing innocent sentient creatures in order to survive.

However, a technological solution to the science-caused limited-resource problem would be to export meat-eating humans to another planet, such as Mars. Since natural evolution has not prepared the red planet for producing human foods, the technology of terra-forming must be developed by artificial evolution of a lifeless planet into a life-bearing world. Perhaps, by then, the technology for plant-based meat-analogues will be developed to the point where it solves both the insufficiency issue, and the moral problem --- "killing two birds with one stone" (sorry for the predatory metaphor).

At this point in time, the vegan/vegetarian approach seems to be focused on the moral side of what they view as an ethical/existential problem. And I doubt that they would be satisfied with a pragmatic technical solution to a moral problem, even though it might indirectly address the ethical evils. So, how can the rest of us decide which is an objective fact (insufficiency), and which is a subjective opinion (morality) ? :smile:



GRASS-EATING CARNIVORE

We have murdered a lot of people over the last five thousand years over religions and politics and we are still at it. — Truth Seeker

Now you have stated an opinion I don't agree with, and we were getting along so well! :smile:

There surely is a lot of disagreement over religion and politics, but when it comes to war, I think the stakes are almost always material: Who is going to have control over resources (land, water, minerals, labor, etc.)

Take, for instance, the conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire by the armies of Islam. There clearly was a religious overlay: Islam vs. Christian. There had been earlier religious overlays to the Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean Basin, and then to the conversion of the Empire to Christianity. Power politics too. But under the religious and political overlay was the on-the-ground reality of land, and who controlled it. Land is a very material concern: Who gets to concentrate the wealth that farmers, miners, urban centers, traders, etc. create?

Some wars are murky: What was at stake in WWI? The years of stalemate in the trenches, the appalling number of dead, the static lines of battle... it's hard to see what the Central Powers vs. the Triple Entente were after. It seems like the balance of German land and population was one problem. German industry was very successful, but a lot of German soil was not great for agriculture (too much clay, too wet, to chilly...

France was in much better shape agriculturally, and was on a par with German industry. Great Britain didn't have to depend on its small island for food and markets: it had the Empire and it ruled the seas. Control of the seas enabled GB to blockade Germany, which helped starve the Germans into submission.

WWII is much clearer: The politics were crystal clear, and the material aspirations of the Nazi regime were front and center.

How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion? There are more than 8.1 billion humans on Earth and our conflicting ideologies, religions, worldviews and values divide us. I worry that we will destroy ourselves and all the other species with our conflicts. I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better. — Truth Seeker

I agree with you. We do need to know the difference between a fact or an opinion. Believing in a God can not be a belief about fact because there is no substance that can be empirically studied. However, we can study animals and learn about humans.

Religion has to be opinion. An opinion that a mythology is true. The temperature of the sea and reality of increasing natural disasters are a fact. Believing a God will save our sorry asses and give us a new planet to destroy, is not based on fact.

One is in our heads and not empirically studied. The other can be empirically studied. However, :chin: math is pretty abstract and not exactly matter but it is amazing what we can know with math. Is there a word for this that is other than "opinion" or "fact"?

I agree that we also go to war over resources e.g. land, oil, etc.

I don't know the answer to your question. I agree that religions and political ideologies (e.g. communism, capitalism, socialism, etc.) are opinions.

Please see https://thehumaneleague.org/article/environmental-benefits-of-veganism

↪BC I agree that we also go to war over resources e.g. land, oil, etc. — Truth Seeker

And so do most animals. What makes us different is our ability to think about such things. We want to believe our wars are just wars, whereas animals don't ask the question, they just chase away the immigrants. :lol: Do we have anything to gain by allowing the immigrants to move in or take control of a neighbor's homeland? What are the morals we might gain from Greek and Roman history versus the success of Christianity and other religions?

↪Gnomon Please see https://thehumaneleague.org/article/environmental-benefits-of-veganism — Truth Seeker

:gasp: Just because the factory farm produces plants instead of meat, that does not make them sustainable. It is not possible for us to use soil over and over again without replenishing the nutrients in the soil and even than this does not give us the soil that is replenished by volcanos or flooding or an ice age that shoved top soil into valleys. One of the most important nutrients is phosphate and if current usage of it continues, the world's supply maybe depleted by 2050. Just as serious is our fertilizer is made with petroleum. We are less worried about that than we were before fracking made oil more available to us but believing our farming practices are healthy and sustainable is just wrong. Not only are we depleting the minerals but we are polluting rivers and oceans. "GeoDistinies" by Walter Youngquist.

The huge industrial farms we have today resulted from a study to improve the lives of small farmers. Instead of the study improving the lives of small farmers, it destroyed them because the study revealed the industrial farms could feed more people than small farmers can feed. So the small farmers were sacrificed for the good of the millions of hungry people.

Now we have the global warming that is rapidly depleting our water supply. In area fed by meling glaciers, we can see the trouble coming but the depletion of underground water is not so visible. The world is about to experience severe water shortages that could lead to desertification of our once fertile land.

The moral of this story is the ancients were correct when they foresaw the day when there would be more life on earth than the earth could support. There is nothing mystical about the Biblical last days. It is just Fibonacci math and knowing the struggle for survival.

I do not mean becoming vegetarian would not improve things temporarily, only that solution is temporary.

I didn't know things were so bad. What is the solution?

Might is right. Adapt or die. This is how the real world works. I wish we lived in a nice world where every living thing is forever happy but we don't.

↪Athena I didn't know things were so bad. What is the solution? — Truth Seeker

At this point in time I don't know if there are any good solutions but I am very excited about the possibility of a New Age that could be more moral than any previous time in history. To prepare for that we must consider the possibility that we are in the Resurrection now. The past is being brought into the present by the archaeologist, geologist, and related sciences. It is our job to learn all we can, and reevaluate everything, so we can move into a New Age that is so different from the past those in the New Age will not be able to relate to the history of our past.

You know, like a Star Trek show where an advanced civilization makes us look primitive.

↪Athena Might is right. Adapt or die. This is how the real world works. I wish we lived in a nice world where every living thing is forever happy but we don't. — Truth Seeker

Be careful you might get what you wish for. It might not be what you want.

I have no desire to go to heaven. The idea of living eternally in perfection is not desirable. There would be no good movies or novels without problems to overcome. I have no idea what would motivate me to get up in the morning. Without problems to resolve, what would give me a sense of propose? Might such a life be intolerably boring?

"Might is right" is pretty primative and comes from the notion that God is the might and chooses who will live and who will die. Really? what kind of statement is "might makes right". You jest, right?

The universe of Star Trek is a positive one but it is fiction. I try hard to keep my personal ecological footprint low. Are you talking about New Age spirituality?

I am just going by what I have observed. 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth are already extinct. The world is full of omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, and parasites. Why aren't all living things autotrophs the way all plants (except for carnivorous plants) are? It would be even better if all living things were nonconsumers. Human history and our present are full of violence, murder, war, exploitation, slavery, genocide, rape, torture, robbery, theft, etc. I have been kidnapped, raped, beaten up and robbed. Six of my relatives were murdered in separate incidents. My best friend was also murdered. The criminals got away with the crimes. If hard determinism is true, the criminals are not even morally culpable. "Might is right. Adapt or die" is what I have seen from my earliest memories to the present. I hate all the suffering, inequality, injustice, and death in the world. I wish we lived in a nice world where everyone is forever happy. I don't think it would be boring. If every living thing were all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful and owned an infinite number of universes each, how could we be bored?

↪Athena The universe of Star Trek is a positive one but it is fiction. I try hard to keep my personal ecological footprint low. Are you talking about New Age spirituality? — Truth Seeker

A notion of a New Age was carried by Masons and the forefathers of the US. It is part of the Enlightenment and hope for our democracy.

Spirituality may or may not be part of a person's understanding of the New Age. It is a time of technology and the end of tyranny. A time of peace on earth resulting from advanced intellectual strength and I believe we can achieve this if we do not destroy our planet before we do. This mental evolution means people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our more our primitive past that is dominated by being as animals without a well-developed intellect.

That's interesting. Time will tell. Thank you for telling me about it.

↪Athena I am just going by what I have observed. 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth are already extinct. The world is full of omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, and parasites. Why aren't all living things autotrophs the way all plants (except for carnivorous plants) are? It would be even better if all living things were nonconsumers. Human history and our present are full of violence, murder, war, exploitation, slavery, genocide, rape, torture, robbery, theft, etc. I have been kidnapped, raped, beaten up and robbed. Six of my relatives were murdered in separate incidents. My best friend was also murdered. The criminals got away with the crimes. If hard determinism is true, the criminals are not even morally culpable. "Might is right. Adapt or die" is what I have seen from my earliest memories to the present. I hate all the suffering, inequality, injustice, and death in the world. I wish we lived in a nice world where everyone is forever happy. I don't think it would be boring. If every living thing were all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful and owned an infinite number of universes each, how could we be bored? — Truth Seeker

Where do you live, Chicago, New York, L.A. the jungles of Africa? We institute governments to protect ourselves from ourselves. However, that alone is not enough. :heart:

There can be no liberty without education for liberty, and perhaps there can be no security until every child experiences security. For sure, technology is essential to better lives, but until we figure out governments must be funded by thesource of income, we will not achieve the economic power required for better lives. When machines replace human labor, the source of income is those computers and machines and they must be taxed because they replace the human laborer that is taxed.
This is not a new idea, taxation began with property taxes, and our machines are property.

Securing the resources for low and high-tech economies can lead to war, so we have to be 100% honest about our need for resources and how to share the resources with the world. This is an intellectual feat we have not achieved. Religion has not helped us one bit when it comes to sharing the earth with others nor has the Bible given us the intellectual capacity for the honesty world peace requires.

Yipes as I struggle to imagine a perfect world, I am reminded of the novel/movie Brave New World. Have you seen it?

It could be fun to form a group that can commit to watching that movie 30 minutes at a time and then comment after each viewing. We must remember our best intentions can go very wrong.

↪Athena That's interesting. Time will tell. Thank you for telling me about it. — Truth Seeker

For darn sure we are not going to achieve our full potential with the God of Abrahman and Biblical explanation of reality. As long as we cling to superstition we will not have good judgment about reality and ourselves.

Now you have stated an opinion I don't agree with, and we were getting along so well! :smile: — BC

Not where he grew up. He has dealt with a lot of killing and lawlessness. There are areas on earth that are not healthy for humans because humans tend to fill their heads full of lies and than act on them in destructive ways. Hum, that could make a good thread. What is required for safe communities?

Who gets to concentrate the wealth that farmers, miners, urban centers, traders, etc. create? — BC

That is a delicious question! But I want to point out the killing of which Truth Teller speaks is emotional and I don't think the US has ever dealt with the number of emotionally unstable people that it has today. Our western TV seems to focus on killing. Every episode someone is killed and that probably is not a realistic account of our past. But today the number of mass murders committed by emotionally unstable people is alarming. I think we need to get past the notion of good and bad people, and be more scientific about our understanding of such behavior. The moral being a matter of cause and effect.

I have noticed some people have a strong opinion of what it means to be a strong person and how this person should have control. I am not sure if they are part of the problem or part of the solution.

I live in the U.K. currently but I was born in Bangladesh. I have read the book "Brave New World" and I don't have the time to watch the movie but thank you for the recommendation. Governments are supposed to protect people but they don't always succeed.

I agree.

↪Athena I live in the U.K. currently but I was born in Bangladesh. I have read the book "Brave New World" and I don't have the time to watch the movie but thank you for the recommendation. Governments are supposed to protect people but they don't always succeed. — Truth Seeker

Why would anyone leave Bangladesh? I think of Bangladesh as very exotic and with a rich history. Meaning, that some of the earliest people at least passed through the region and later inhabitants developed pottery and things of metal. They had a very impressive military with elephants, surely the tanks of their day. That may have kept Alexander the Great from tromping all over them.

Today Bangladesh is one of the most threatened countries because of global warming but when the first people walked through it must have been a paradise with abundant food. I would love to go back in time and check it out.