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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 27th, 2023

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  • What country has a system where SOLDIERS IN THE MILITARY can’t be forced to invade another country?

    Like it’s a nice ideal, but considering your idea is novel and radical maybe start with countries that aren’t at war.

    Second of all, once you’re at war, you’re at war. There is no “just defend your territory” because that means there is no reason not to invade you and no loss scenario for your invader, the worst outcome they lose some soldiers and your borders are unaffected. Once you are attacked you have to seek every legal advantage (see the Geneva convention) to obtain victory and repel your attackers. On that basis I’m not even sure your idea is sound or reasonable in the first place for a defending country. And in this specific scenario it’s just helping Russia.

    I’m marking you as a Russian troll just to see how often you’re on here defending Russia by “just asking questions” about the actions of Ukraine while not holding Russia to any standard at all .











  • I like what you’re saying and I agree with it fundamentally. I wish it is possible to have the majority of crops be direct to consumer. I KNOW everyone is happier when they have a real personal relationship with the products they consume. That’s even part of what marketing abuses when it anthropomorphises brands.

    I’m personally pessimistic on that front though, I think it can’t happen in modern capitalism for two major reasons. Number one, I don’t think the majority of the population of Western nations, let alone the world, can tolerate even a moderate increase in food prices without creating massive instability. I know what the “middle men” jack up prices considerably on almost everything, but the staples: wheat and meat in my part of the world, simply cannot be sold cheaper by smaller operations than grocery store prices (in part due to the regulatory capture so prevalent in modern capitalism). Number two, of the people that CAN tolerate the increase, I don’t think modern capitalism would allow their profits to be undercut by a significant shift towards small producers selling direct to customers. They have a few tools that I just don’t think most people are prepared to live without like comfort and consistency. I can get plums, cauliflower, tomatoes, broccoli ANYTIME OF YEAR at reasonably consistent prices. The idea that people will have to pay more AND change to seasonal eating habits where they just can’t get certain things most of the year? I think we’re too far into the comfort of bourgeois decadence, excuse my communist language, to tolerate the change.

    I will say I have enjoyed this discussion and I certainly agree that I mischaracterised you by initially latching onto a throwaway “ew bugs” comment.


  • Using sustainable practices “they only eat a little” is totally valid. The way we farm now… A pest outbreak will ravage a monoculture crop.

    I know there are great alternatives, but they all have higher labour requirements. Modern capitalism can’t tolerate that. If we can find a better solution now we can mitigate the damage before we end capitalism. After that we can definitely switch to more labour intensive sustainable practices. I’m not an accelerationist so I’m not rushing to end the current world order before trying to make all the improvements we can.



  • I’m not fighting you. It’s just you’re acting as if the reason we research pesticides isn’t because we need it to protect our food source.

    I’m not even saying that there isn’t some possible alternative, I’m just saying monoculture grains is how humanity gets most of its calories right now. It’s how we currently survive. That requires pesticides. These pesticides are far less damaging to the world than the current ones in use right now. It’s in the research phase too, so it’s not like we’re committing to this specific idea. Everyone knows there are pros and cons, the scientists doing the research do too. You’re not the first person to realise that this will trap all small insects. Just a reminder that our current solution kills all insects and this one is better. The fact it doesn’t harm bees is already a massive improvement.

    Everyone should be welcome and encouraged to research any idea that’s better than our current ideas in any way. Any knowledge is good knowledge.

    As for your preferred ideas? There are lots of ways to help be part of a future that includes what you feel is the best solution. That being said, none of them include being disingenuous about why we use pesticides in the first place. I don’t know why that was contentious to you. We don’t kill bugs because they’re gross, we kill them because they eat our food.




  • Until then the dairy industry is going to keep using the regulation to its advantage whenever it can to keep others out of the market.

    I don’t know what’s confusing.

    1.A regulation was created to control what you can and can’t put in the product called “milk” for the good of the customer.

    2.The dairy industry used the regulation that was built to restrain them to keep vegan milks out of the market dishonestly using the “for the good of the customer” argument.

    3.If someone can fix the regulation to allow both well regulated milk and non dairy milks then it’ll put an end to this bullshit.

    Where have I lost you? Just because 2 happened doesn’t mean 1 didn’t happen first. In fact 2 would have been a lot harder if there wasn’t regulation controlling the word milk in the first place.


  • I know it feels easy to armchair regulate but it’s not usually that easy. Like if you keep current milk regulations but then let people add a word before milk to escape the rules (to allow oat milk for example) then the dairy industry will pull shit like “pure milk” and “super milk” to escape the rules. It’s a cat and mouse game as soon as you start adding exceptions.

    Milk is one of the longest regulated foods because the dairy industry misbehaves so much. The industrialisation of milk was so bad it caused tuberculosis outbreaks among other things.

    I’m not saying there isn’t a good solution, there are always many good solutions possible. All I’m saying is not to forget that there is a reason the word milk was regulated for so long. Whatever exception is carved out for almond milk has to be well constructed enough not to weaken the current milk standards, yet broad enough to allow for any variety of plant based milk and that’s going to take some serious expertise. Enshrining plant based milks in a well thought out regulation is going to be the best way to stop this whole “only animal milk is milk” stuff. Until then the dairy industry is going to keep using the regulation to its advantage whenever it can to keep others out of the market.