Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[The Grand Nudger]

There are vegan fertilizers in the works, what else?

There are "vegan fertilizers" already existent - but I'm wondering what breakthroughs you think are forthcoming on that count..and how you imagine those fertilizers to be produced? Just calling something vegan doesn't actually do -anything-. Certainly doesn't reduce the suffering of animals.

Well, we do need to feed the livestock with plants, so that does not seem relevant especially as 50% of the world's grains are fed to livestock.

Grain which is otherwise waste, yup. But we don't -have- to feed them that waste product.

Albeit not very efficiently, and we might as well start growing things that are useful to us instead.

They are useful to us (much more than -just- as food), and they are more efficient than we are at converting what is nothing - to us, into something, to us. One of the few things that can be grown on the land suitable for livestock - is feed grain for livestock. Understand? That was one driving factor in the rise of the feedlots. You can grow 2 cattle worth of corn on land that -under pasture- could support some percentage less than 2 cattle. It made sense for prodcuers, financially, to shift the cattle to filing cabinets and free up that pastureland for some choice grain cultivars. Those cultivars themselves being the product of a half century of dedicated breeding - You won't eat them, but they grow like weeds reletive to their cousins whom you will eat. We combined that with chemical programs (sometimes tied into the cultivar, think:roundup ready). Now, why not grow veggies there? Because it would cost so much more to do so. The land would need extensive development and extraneous inputs - it could not be reliably competitive in the market....because it is wasteful of energy and input. That's assuming that they could even be grown /w modification and inputs - which is a hell of an assumption, you might need an indoor operation.

I still don't see why we need to choose between using less fossil fuels and decreasing the scale of the livestock industry. Why not both?

Because without fossil fuels we'd need an -increase- in livestock production for fertility. If we don't have livestock we'll need an increase in fossil fuels (and we'll be on a timer even so). Decrease scale and consumption of both and you will decrease the amount of food available to an already starving apex predators species (the species, in fact). It's not going to look good for zebras when we're hungrier than we already are - and of course, imagine the suffering. That's just the surface layer, of course. Even if we managed to produce precisely the same amount of food as today (a tall order even -with- those sources) the inflation in the cost of food would have us scrambling to do all manner of rapacious shit just to feed our hellions a box of veggie fortified shells and cheese. Really sit down and think about this. This is the very bottom of the pyramid we're talking about here, after all. Any action you take can have consequences you may not want to claim, there are a great many more ways to do harm or incur suffering than there are to alleviate or reduce it. If we propose something, or we propose that it's even an option, it shouldn't be because we'd only cared to dig deep enough to confirm our bias - and we'd certainly need to understand why we have to make shitty choices before we call those choices immoral or unethical, don;t you think?

I am not really interested in having a discussion about interest to live as it is not nearly as important as sentience. But anyway, I think our disagreement on interests to live is mainly semantics. I see being aware of what is good for you an essential part of having interests, you do not seem to think that is so.

Then cattle don't have interests. They don't know a damned thing, let alone whats good for them. My sirloin tip is safe. Hell with that though, lets run with it. Ever wonder why cattle don't just overrun their shitty little fences - or, when the fence is open, why they just stand there without making a break for it? A credulous man might say that this is because they know whats good for them. That man might claim that the cows have plainly made their vote.

Well, as at least a hundred billion animals are slaughtered each year by the dairy and meat industries, I do think for now the suffering it causes is greater. But the livestock industry is the #1 emitter of GHGs, so do our interests not align here?

Slaughter does not equal suffer. You could make the argument that those animals suffering has permanently ceased, lol. But yeah, insomuch as we both want to make changes to food production that would be both more environmentally conscious and more ethical our interests align.

I'm not that brilliant. I do want to mention that I do not propose abolishing the livestock industry tomorrow, that is just not possible. It must be a gradual process to give the world time to adapt, a gradual process that is ongoing right now; veg*nism is getting more and more popular. I do think we could start by giving some more of our grains to people and feeding the cattle with grass/hay instead, which is healthier for them anyway.

Time to adapt to what? We need fertility. There's no "adapting" to that. Those grains are not fit for human consumption (a huge part of the problem).

I do not think paying someone else to do the dirty work for you makes it any better. If Hitler pays the SS to kill jews, I think Hitler is as much of a killer as the people that turn on the gas chambers are. If one buys meat, one is just as much contributing to the suffering of animals as the people that shoot them are. You might not agree with the slaughter, but you know that it is an essential part of meat production (well, unless we're talking about the upcoming artificial meat, you guys excited for that?).

Remember, our money goes to hurting people too..........sigh...meh, I know you addressed Stim there...but I thought we were past that point. Now you're likening folks to hitler...lol, ffs.