AI is literally destroying the environment. How the FUCK do so many people not realise this. The data centres use massive amounts of water, their owners refuse to use renewables, they take up space on the power grid so it becomes impossible to build new housing, etc ad nauseum.
Lawns take up more water than all the datacenters. Golf courses take up more water. Get a fucking grip. You better not be complaining about water usage with the flesh of vulnerable individuals still stuck between your teeth because animal ag consumes an order of magnitude more water, emits more greenhouse gasses than all transportation combined, and gives NOTHING back but death and destruction.
Animal ag consumes more food than it produces. It is a method for investors to refine cheap, plentiful, safe, and sustainable plant food into a harmful, addictive, expensive luxury product. Many of the costs are hidden from the consumer in the form of subsidies.
Western meat consumption has multiplied several fold in the last couple of generations. There is no “need” to that, there is only “want” and pure addiction.
To say it gives nothing back is simply a lie though. It literally provides one of the most important things people need. Food. Just because it’s an inefficient method does not mean it provides nothing.
It’s not merely inefficient, it has a negative efficiency; the more you do it, the less food you have. To produce meat, we have to feed animals. To feed a combined biomass that dwarfs all wild land animals on earth, we need to grow food with agriculture. Growing food to feed to animals and then consuming the meat results in a net loss of food as compared to just growing the food. Every step up the food chain represents enormous losses. Animal ag does not produce food. I know that is hard to accept but it’s a unescapable thermodynamic reality.
The reason animal ag has exploded so much over recent decades is that it allows industrialists to capitalize the vast surplus of food that is grown. More food is grown than humans alone can possibly eat. But capitalism demands constant growth, or it eats itself. Animal ag creates demand for this surplus food. It doesn’t benefit anyone except the industrialists who exploit both us and the animals. Even returning to 1950s levels of animal ag intensity would slash its footprint to a barely significant fraction of what it is now. It’s an absolute catastrophe and people are conditioned to completely tune it out.
We need food, but animal ag consumes more food than it produces. Grazing and other forms of “resource upcycling” cannot make up the massive difference.
Except you don’t need to eat meat, you’re just justifying the destruction you like. That’s not to say that AI is anything close to as relevant as food, but the point still stands, meat production is destructive to the environment.
Something can be both useful and also destructive. Pretty sure people have done the maths and to approach the levels of efficiency that say meat has you’d be consuming a lot more calories. Similarly actual milk is better than soy milk.
This isn’t to diss people that make the choice, but your quality of life will be worse, so yes I count that as those meat products being necessary, in spite of the environmental damage. I think there are better ways to fix that. Diversifying the meat industry, lowering food waste, etc. What seems more interesting at the moment is lab grown meat, since it has all the pros with none of the cons, except cost.
And I’m “pretty sure” that you are talking about what you WISH were true, not what you KNOW is true. Unfortunately, many people in this forum actually know what IS true, and you are so far off the mark, you would be humiliated if you actually grasped it.
Pretty sure people have done the maths and to approach the levels of efficiency that say meat has you’d be consuming a lot more calories.
What does meat’s “efficiency” have to do with anything related to caloric intake? If I consume 1000 calories of meat or 1000 calories of vegetables, I’ve still consumed 1000 calories. I can only assume you mean I would have to eat a larger quantity of vegetables get the same amount of calories, and that’s not the argument you think it is when people by and large consume too many calories and don’t get enough micronutrients as it is.
but your quality of life will be worse, so yes I count that as those meat products being necessary, in spite of the environmental damage
I’m not even a full vegetarian, but even I know this is just self justification for what you want to do. One of my partners is a vegetarian, and I cut back on like 80-90% of my meat intake and my quality of life (like energy and general physical/mental wellbeing) is the same or better than it was a few years ago.
The only good points you made was about food waste and lab meat, the rest is just cope.
Sorry my thoughts got lost over multiple messages. I meant to get a similar amount of protein you need to consume more vegan food, especially calorie rich ones, most restaurants that I’ve seen when they have comparable items the vegan one had way more calories. I’d love to hear more of your experiences with this as someone who’s gone through that, do you find it harder to stay in shape?
Also thank you for actually engaging with me on this, the other person was very volatile.
I meant to get a similar amount of protein you need to consume more vegan food, especially calorie rich ones, most restaurants that I’ve seen when they have comparable items the vegan one had way more calories.
Sure, but optimizing for protein isn’t the best methodology. I guess if you’re determined to max protein, meat is a better source. But if you want a better and more rounded diet, especially one low in saturated fats and high in fiber, the vegetarian (or even reduced meat) pathway is much better. Doubly so if you’re concerned about heart disease, colon cancer, or any of the side effects of eating too much protein.
Makes sense, thank you. I personally try to avoid red meats because of the concerns you raised. I’m not saying a meat only diet is the way, ofc you need a well rounded diet and greens certainly have their place in our diets, but we are omnivores for a reason
Animal ag consumes more food than it produces!! JFC people! We grow several times more plants than humanity can possibly eat, and then we refine it through the bodies of vulnerable individuals and murder them. THAT’S NOT FOOD, that atrocity.
It is food, get off your high horse if you plan on convincing anyone to back you. Topics and opinions are more nuanced than you want and people can’t easily get boxed.
Yes I’m aware the food industry is one of the least efficient industries out there. No I don’t think pure abolition is realistic or useful, as the products that come out of it can’t be replaced, you can adjust your diet to get proteins and such from other places, but beans and nuts are going to rack up your calories a ton compared to meat.
And calling someone a useful idiot is bold while you’re taking the pressure off of the ai industry which is not producing something useful for people (unlike meat which in spite of the failings of the industry is still helpful*) to say “but what about this other thing?!”. We can deal with both, but one of those is definitely worse than the other and it’s the one that we have existed without for thousands of years.
So if I grind up your children and eat it, they become “just food” and you should get off your high horse. If my industry changes the climate and you burn and freeze, it’s “just food” and you should get over yourself. It’s like saying, “It’s just a joke, brah!” It’s a childish attempt to evade responsibility for the consequences of your choices.
but beans and nuts are going to rack up your calories a ton compared to meat.
Where are you even getting this?? This is bonkers.
If you are getting enough calories from whole food plants, you are necessarily getting enough protein. If you eat nothing but rice, and you are getting enough calories, you are necessarily getting enough protein. “Protein” is a bullshit marketing angle. You are a victim of marketing.
Plants are nutrient-dense and calorie-poor. This is what you want for health. Animal flesh is exactly the opposite, plus contains things that actually kill you. The more meat a human eats, the younger a human dies and the more major diseases a human experiences. Just google: “meat all cause mortality” and educate yourself A LITTLE TINY BIT.
The things you are saying are so utterly uninformed, but you’re so confidently incorrect. It’s maddening. We both know for certain that you have never researched animal ag. Why are you trying to advance arguments when you know you have never researched it? What is motivating this stupid, arrogant behaviour?
We can deal with both, but one of those is definitely worse than the other
The worse one is animal ag, by orders of magnitude!! Fucking do some research. Animal ag produces more climate change effects than ALL TRANSPORTATION ON EARTH COMBINED. Data centers don’t even move the needle beside that. It’s wildly hypocritical to criticize people’s private AI use on the basis of water consumption while you consume animals. If you actually gave a shit about water use, you’d be looking to your own easily changed behaviour first. But this is just a conditioned response founded in ignorance. It’s piling on and superstition. As soon as the subject of AI leaves your mind, you stop giving a single shit about water usage.
While this is name-calling (and the proverbial last refuge of a so-and-so) you’re not wrong. I wish I had the capacity to advocate effectively.
You might have heard of the so called “overview effect” reported by space travelers who have observed the Earth from a great enough distance that the entire planet is in view. It changes their psychological perspective. I don’t know if it’s a real thing, but I have experienced something analogous.
I grew up with the same social conditioning as everyone else, to see animals as means rather than ends, to disregard their experiences and suffering, to deny that they even capable of having those things. I committed thousands of grievous acts of unforgivable cruelty to individuals who all had the capacity to actually love me, the same as I love anyone else, but I didn’t care. It didn’t bother me, so I thought. In reality, I had a whole toolbox of psychological tricks that I used on myself to avoid perceiving this cruelty and violence. To avoid perceiving myself as a cruel and violent person, a bad person.
These self-serving beliefs about animals and the tools one uses to enforce and manage the cognitive dissonance are collectively called carnism. Through a series of difficult choices and radical honesty, slowly at first, and then in a great rush, I lost my carnism. I was finally able to see things as the are, at least in this respect. I saw the whole fucking thing. And I saw what I had done, in the very same moment that I lost all my defense mechanisms that protect me from what I have done.
I have to admit, much of my grace has gone out of me. Much of my respect for my fellow progressives, much of my sense of safety. I feel like a raw exposed nerve whenever it comes up, and it’s been ten years. But I also feel that I must never again make use of those tools carnism gave me to ignore reality, and that I don’t deserve to have comfort with the things that I have done. I have not yet learned to manage these feelings such that I can engage with abusers productively.
I think everyone should reject carnism, but realistically, having gone through it, I know that most people will never even attempt it. Reality is brutal and horrible. People need their lies just to get through it. I’m trying to accept that, but it is proving even harder.
it’s the one that we have existed without for thousands of years.
We have had neither for more than a few decades. Animal ag as it exists today did not exist when I was born. There is several times more biomass in humans and farmed animals than all the wild land animals combined. This has not been going on for thousands of years, that is utterly uninformed and frankly amazingly unobservant.
You have no idea what you are talking about, but you’re soooo confident. It’s pointless to continue, you’re going to keep making shit up because you are unwilling to process the feelings that come up when you consider that you might be wrong. Which, I am sure you can appreciate, would put blood on your hands.
We live in an economy engineered to isolate us and make us work building up these empires for crumbs to be able to survive while slowly selling our souls sway. It’s depressing.
Like I said, if they can fix that problem, then I’m fine with it. The resources it currently consumes is the reason why I kind of detest 4K and 8K AI videos. But I also kind of detest 4K and 8K TVs and monitors. We don’t need that many god damn pixels. Unless you’re a bird of prey, 4K is a complete waste of electricity.
AI is literally destroying the environment. How the FUCK do so many people not realise this. The data centres use massive amounts of water, their owners refuse to use renewables, they take up space on the power grid so it becomes impossible to build new housing, etc ad nauseum.
My God.
Lawns take up more water than all the datacenters. Golf courses take up more water. Get a fucking grip. You better not be complaining about water usage with the flesh of vulnerable individuals still stuck between your teeth because animal ag consumes an order of magnitude more water, emits more greenhouse gasses than all transportation combined, and gives NOTHING back but death and destruction.
Animal Ag gives us valuable food. Sure there are better alternatives out there but it literally gives us something we need to live.
Animal ag consumes more food than it produces. It is a method for investors to refine cheap, plentiful, safe, and sustainable plant food into a harmful, addictive, expensive luxury product. Many of the costs are hidden from the consumer in the form of subsidies.
Western meat consumption has multiplied several fold in the last couple of generations. There is no “need” to that, there is only “want” and pure addiction.
To say it gives nothing back is simply a lie though. It literally provides one of the most important things people need. Food. Just because it’s an inefficient method does not mean it provides nothing.
It’s not merely inefficient, it has a negative efficiency; the more you do it, the less food you have. To produce meat, we have to feed animals. To feed a combined biomass that dwarfs all wild land animals on earth, we need to grow food with agriculture. Growing food to feed to animals and then consuming the meat results in a net loss of food as compared to just growing the food. Every step up the food chain represents enormous losses. Animal ag does not produce food. I know that is hard to accept but it’s a unescapable thermodynamic reality.
The reason animal ag has exploded so much over recent decades is that it allows industrialists to capitalize the vast surplus of food that is grown. More food is grown than humans alone can possibly eat. But capitalism demands constant growth, or it eats itself. Animal ag creates demand for this surplus food. It doesn’t benefit anyone except the industrialists who exploit both us and the animals. Even returning to 1950s levels of animal ag intensity would slash its footprint to a barely significant fraction of what it is now. It’s an absolute catastrophe and people are conditioned to completely tune it out.
We need food, but animal ag consumes more food than it produces. Grazing and other forms of “resource upcycling” cannot make up the massive difference.
deleted by creator
And fucking golf?
Oh I’m well in agreement with that one. Huge waste of water for a sport that is almost always reserved for rich people to enjoy.
Keeps Trump away from the “launch nuclear missiles” button.
Yeah and so is animal agriculture…
Except you need food to eat, you don’t need AI.
You don’t need animal products to live, but I don’t disagree with your point about food. At least it’s actually for people.
AI is only for extracting the last bit of marrow from the bones of workers before making them completely obsolete.
Except you don’t need to eat meat, you’re just justifying the destruction you like. That’s not to say that AI is anything close to as relevant as food, but the point still stands, meat production is destructive to the environment.
Something can be both useful and also destructive. Pretty sure people have done the maths and to approach the levels of efficiency that say meat has you’d be consuming a lot more calories. Similarly actual milk is better than soy milk.
This isn’t to diss people that make the choice, but your quality of life will be worse, so yes I count that as those meat products being necessary, in spite of the environmental damage. I think there are better ways to fix that. Diversifying the meat industry, lowering food waste, etc. What seems more interesting at the moment is lab grown meat, since it has all the pros with none of the cons, except cost.
And I’m “pretty sure” that you are talking about what you WISH were true, not what you KNOW is true. Unfortunately, many people in this forum actually know what IS true, and you are so far off the mark, you would be humiliated if you actually grasped it.
You should check your facts about meat efficiency, soy milk and dairy… And don’t just ask ai to tell you what you want to hear…
I’m disgusted that you’d assume I use AI.
What does meat’s “efficiency” have to do with anything related to caloric intake? If I consume 1000 calories of meat or 1000 calories of vegetables, I’ve still consumed 1000 calories. I can only assume you mean I would have to eat a larger quantity of vegetables get the same amount of calories, and that’s not the argument you think it is when people by and large consume too many calories and don’t get enough micronutrients as it is.
I’m not even a full vegetarian, but even I know this is just self justification for what you want to do. One of my partners is a vegetarian, and I cut back on like 80-90% of my meat intake and my quality of life (like energy and general physical/mental wellbeing) is the same or better than it was a few years ago.
The only good points you made was about food waste and lab meat, the rest is just cope.
Sorry my thoughts got lost over multiple messages. I meant to get a similar amount of protein you need to consume more vegan food, especially calorie rich ones, most restaurants that I’ve seen when they have comparable items the vegan one had way more calories. I’d love to hear more of your experiences with this as someone who’s gone through that, do you find it harder to stay in shape?
Also thank you for actually engaging with me on this, the other person was very volatile.
Sure, but optimizing for protein isn’t the best methodology. I guess if you’re determined to max protein, meat is a better source. But if you want a better and more rounded diet, especially one low in saturated fats and high in fiber, the vegetarian (or even reduced meat) pathway is much better. Doubly so if you’re concerned about heart disease, colon cancer, or any of the side effects of eating too much protein.
Makes sense, thank you. I personally try to avoid red meats because of the concerns you raised. I’m not saying a meat only diet is the way, ofc you need a well rounded diet and greens certainly have their place in our diets, but we are omnivores for a reason
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Animal ag consumes more food than it produces!! JFC people! We grow several times more plants than humanity can possibly eat, and then we refine it through the bodies of vulnerable individuals and murder them. THAT’S NOT FOOD, that atrocity.
Anyone who consumes animals and bitches about AI’s water use is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot – but for whom?
It is food, get off your high horse if you plan on convincing anyone to back you. Topics and opinions are more nuanced than you want and people can’t easily get boxed.
Yes I’m aware the food industry is one of the least efficient industries out there. No I don’t think pure abolition is realistic or useful, as the products that come out of it can’t be replaced, you can adjust your diet to get proteins and such from other places, but beans and nuts are going to rack up your calories a ton compared to meat.
And calling someone a useful idiot is bold while you’re taking the pressure off of the ai industry which is not producing something useful for people (unlike meat which in spite of the failings of the industry is still helpful*) to say “but what about this other thing?!”. We can deal with both, but one of those is definitely worse than the other and it’s the one that we have existed without for thousands of years.
So if I grind up your children and eat it, they become “just food” and you should get off your high horse. If my industry changes the climate and you burn and freeze, it’s “just food” and you should get over yourself. It’s like saying, “It’s just a joke, brah!” It’s a childish attempt to evade responsibility for the consequences of your choices.
Where are you even getting this?? This is bonkers.
If you are getting enough calories from whole food plants, you are necessarily getting enough protein. If you eat nothing but rice, and you are getting enough calories, you are necessarily getting enough protein. “Protein” is a bullshit marketing angle. You are a victim of marketing.
Plants are nutrient-dense and calorie-poor. This is what you want for health. Animal flesh is exactly the opposite, plus contains things that actually kill you. The more meat a human eats, the younger a human dies and the more major diseases a human experiences. Just google: “meat all cause mortality” and educate yourself A LITTLE TINY BIT.
The things you are saying are so utterly uninformed, but you’re so confidently incorrect. It’s maddening. We both know for certain that you have never researched animal ag. Why are you trying to advance arguments when you know you have never researched it? What is motivating this stupid, arrogant behaviour?
The worse one is animal ag, by orders of magnitude!! Fucking do some research. Animal ag produces more climate change effects than ALL TRANSPORTATION ON EARTH COMBINED. Data centers don’t even move the needle beside that. It’s wildly hypocritical to criticize people’s private AI use on the basis of water consumption while you consume animals. If you actually gave a shit about water use, you’d be looking to your own easily changed behaviour first. But this is just a conditioned response founded in ignorance. It’s piling on and superstition. As soon as the subject of AI leaves your mind, you stop giving a single shit about water usage.
Username checks out.
While this is name-calling (and the proverbial last refuge of a so-and-so) you’re not wrong. I wish I had the capacity to advocate effectively.
You might have heard of the so called “overview effect” reported by space travelers who have observed the Earth from a great enough distance that the entire planet is in view. It changes their psychological perspective. I don’t know if it’s a real thing, but I have experienced something analogous.
I grew up with the same social conditioning as everyone else, to see animals as means rather than ends, to disregard their experiences and suffering, to deny that they even capable of having those things. I committed thousands of grievous acts of unforgivable cruelty to individuals who all had the capacity to actually love me, the same as I love anyone else, but I didn’t care. It didn’t bother me, so I thought. In reality, I had a whole toolbox of psychological tricks that I used on myself to avoid perceiving this cruelty and violence. To avoid perceiving myself as a cruel and violent person, a bad person.
These self-serving beliefs about animals and the tools one uses to enforce and manage the cognitive dissonance are collectively called carnism. Through a series of difficult choices and radical honesty, slowly at first, and then in a great rush, I lost my carnism. I was finally able to see things as the are, at least in this respect. I saw the whole fucking thing. And I saw what I had done, in the very same moment that I lost all my defense mechanisms that protect me from what I have done.
I have to admit, much of my grace has gone out of me. Much of my respect for my fellow progressives, much of my sense of safety. I feel like a raw exposed nerve whenever it comes up, and it’s been ten years. But I also feel that I must never again make use of those tools carnism gave me to ignore reality, and that I don’t deserve to have comfort with the things that I have done. I have not yet learned to manage these feelings such that I can engage with abusers productively.
I think everyone should reject carnism, but realistically, having gone through it, I know that most people will never even attempt it. Reality is brutal and horrible. People need their lies just to get through it. I’m trying to accept that, but it is proving even harder.
We have had neither for more than a few decades. Animal ag as it exists today did not exist when I was born. There is several times more biomass in humans and farmed animals than all the wild land animals combined. This has not been going on for thousands of years, that is utterly uninformed and frankly amazingly unobservant.
You have no idea what you are talking about, but you’re soooo confident. It’s pointless to continue, you’re going to keep making shit up because you are unwilling to process the feelings that come up when you consider that you might be wrong. Which, I am sure you can appreciate, would put blood on your hands.
I have this feeling the vast majority of lemmy sells their labor to the most evil fucking corporations on the planet.
Why do you think we’re all so interested in unions?
We live in an economy engineered to isolate us and make us work building up these empires for crumbs to be able to survive while slowly selling our souls sway. It’s depressing.
My hoa forces us to water our lawns in a drought when it’s illegal to.
Celebs have planes and yachts they use on a whim.
The entire internet now uses some form of ai.
So you first. Get offline and go live in the fucking woods.
The HOA can’t force you to break the law. If this is actually happening to you, talk to a lawyer!
Your comment is wrong
Like I said, if they can fix that problem, then I’m fine with it. The resources it currently consumes is the reason why I kind of detest 4K and 8K AI videos. But I also kind of detest 4K and 8K TVs and monitors. We don’t need that many god damn pixels. Unless you’re a bird of prey, 4K is a complete waste of electricity.