What I'm vehemently opposed to is the oligarchy dictating that local cultures must make way for profit, especially when it gets down to the level of something visceral such as the puke reflex. 

The fact that "insects are an important protein source for many 3d world cultures" is irrelevant.  Pork is a big part of the diet in China, and it can be sustainably raised on cooked garbage, so shall we start pressuring Jews and Muslims to eat pork? 

People have an equal right to not be subjected to economic coercion to eat things that, for whatever reason, scriptural or secular, disgust them.  Some people who are by ancestry Jewish or Muslim but are not religiously or culturally observant, choose to eat pork.  That's their choice.  Some Americans happily choose to eat bugs.  That's their choice.  The problem is with the economic coercion imposed by the oligarchy.

People also have a right to worship or contemplate the deity of their choice, or to declare that they do not believe in any deity whatsoever.  People also have a right to love who they love and obtain equal access to marriage.  People also have a right to refuse to be married to someone who for whatever reason disgusts them (keyword search "child brides"). 

It's all about the right to self-determination and the integrity of your body, vs. the power of the oligarchy to use various coercive means to transgress your beliefs, your visceral responses, and other elements of your basic nature.

The reason I picked "eating bugs" for the first example, is that for most Americans, the puke reflex about eating bugs is hard-wired through our upbringing.  It's precisely an example of something that a person could change if they were so inclined, but forcing them against their will (including by economic coercion) is offensive and objectionable. 

Similar to forcing gay people to undergo "therapy" to become heterosexual.  Fortunately we're no longer at the point where I can be put in prison or subjected to forced "therapy" for who I love (as Alan Turing was, and many others in that era), but the oligarchy, in its insatiable desire for power over others, keeps finding new things to target, and new ways to do it. 

Eating bugs is one example.  I have another one in mind for my next installment:  no-sex apartments.  Or rather, apartments designed in such a manner that carrying on any kind of sleeping-together relationship is highly discouraged.  Coming to a city near you.  Stay tuned.

-G.


=====


On 13-05-16-Thu 3:23 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer wrote:
I'm really not sure why you seem to be so vehemently opposed to a more insect-based diet, other than the "yuck" factor, which is entirely cultural. Insects are an important protein source for many 3rd world cultures.

As for Beyond Meat's vat grown meat - that will likely *always* be aimed at the top of the high-end market, and likely far, far more resource intensive for the planet than the worst of the cattle factory farming practices - at least for the foreseeable future.

If you want populations to start eating lower on the food chain for the good of the planet, then switching some from beef to insects makes a ton of sense. Switching people from beef to vat-grown meat does *not*, and may never...

Several years ago, Oron Catts and others were involved in a bio art project where they grew a tiny chunk of muscle cells in the lab, and then invited some volunteers to eat it as a piece of performance art. The crux is that you need a plasma-like medium to grow muscle cells on, so to grow the tiny chunk of muscle cells, they used up the equivalent of an entire cow's worth of blood!

Beyond Meat's process is not quite as bad as that - they actually figured out a completely synthetic growth medium to grow their "meat" on. But chances are that synthetic growth medium is still composed of various purified amino acids, which eventually have been produced from various yeast, soy, or even animal protein sources! So you're still left with a huge environmental burden to produce a tiny amount of extremely expensive high-tech "veggie" meat...

Patrik


On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 5:31 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01@att.net> wrote:



For the second day in a row, the BBC runs an article promoting the
virtues of eating bugs, this time on their Travel blog:

http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130513-is-crawly-cuisine-the-future

Pictured is a handful of moth larvae grubs found in Australia: plump
translucent white squirmy things that look like hairless caterpillars or
overgrown maggots. The caption says that they are "...said to have a
crispy skin with a yellow 'eggy' centre when roasted."

Mmm-mmm-good, right?

The article goes on to say, "According to the UN report, 'consumer
disgust' remains a large barrier in many Western countries – but for
some two billion people across the world, eating insects is really no
big deal."

Unsaid: five billion people in the world right now don't eat bugs.
Though, the Beeb does get credit for mentioning "consumer disgust," also
known as the vomit-reflex, even if only as a "barrier," with the
implication that it's something to be overcome, like the desire for
freedom & privacy.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are plenty of other solutions to feeding
a world that's overpopulated by a factor of two and overconsuming beyond
any sustainable limit. One of them is veggie-meat: vegetable matter
that's cooked up to be almost identical to the meat we already eat.

For this we turn to another regular source of Dystopian News, namely
Wired magazine. Yes, "real geeks don't read Wired," but Wired is
actually a good place to keep your finger on the pulse of the corporate
oligarchy and the promoters of the computer-as-God religion.
Occasionally they run something that's actually good news, such as the
following:

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/future-meat/

Beyond Meat is a new company that produces veggie-meat that's a drop-in
replacement for chicken in many recipes. They share the market with
other companies such as Tofurkey and Boca Burgers. At present most of
these products are found in the Vegan aisle in supermarkets, but the
goal of these companies is to put them right next to the meat products
in the meat section.

Veggie-meat tastes good and has great potential to stretch the world's
food supply. Unlike the moth grubs pictured in the Beeb article, it's
something you'd choose to eat and enjoy eating.

So far the oligarchy is ignoring veggie-meat. Funding for veggie-meat
companies typically comes from "angel investors" who consider themselves
rebels and often have altruistic motives alongside the profit motive.

The oligarchy's mission, should you choose to acquiesce, is to make you
submit. Eating bugs is not about preventing hunger, it's about cultural
shock & awe: getting you to do something that grosses you out and makes
you want to throw up, the easier to get you to submit to other
depredations over time.

But as Beyond Meat shows, you don't have to submit, as long as you're
willing to think for yourself, and exercise your own free will.

-G.


=====



On 13-05-14-Tue 12:07 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:
>
> YOs-
>
> The oligarchy has its own vision of the World of Tomorrow, and the world
> they're preparing for us to live in whether we like it or not.  I'll be
> writing occasional pieces about items in the news, to point out what's
> behind the chirpy spin.  This is the first of many.  Fasten your seat
> belts and keep a barf bag handy.
>
> -G.
>
>
> Let Them Eat Bugs.
>
> The United Nations today released a report that touted the benefits of
> eating insects as a solution to world hunger.
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22508439
>
> Hint: it's not really about hunger, it's about making you submit.
>
> Humans have four main categories for things they could potentially put
> in their mouths:  Food, Not-food, Dirt, and People (cannibalism).  (The
> categories "Medicine," "Drugs," and "Poison" serve a different set of
> purposes.)
>
> Food is stuff you want to eat: such as a piece of fruit.  Not-Food is
> stuff you don't want to eat, but the thought of eating it doesn't gross
> you out: such as a piece of paper.  Dirt is stuff you don't want to eat,
> and the thought of eating it does gross you out: such as a turd.  And
> the thought of eating people (cannibalism) also grosses you out: such as
> roast leg of human.
>
> Much of this is cultural.  In American culture, cow is Food (beef); in
> Hindu culture such as in India, cow is People (reincarnation of human
> souls).  In some regions of Africa, fish is Dirt.  To Muslims and Jews,
> pork is Dirt, and to Jews, shellfish is also Dirt.  In some parts of the
> world, insects are Food, but to most of us in America, insects are Dirt.
>
> The fact that culture plays a role does not change the fact that the
> thought of eating something you've been raised to regard as Dirt (or
> People), triggers feelings of disgust and often an involuntary vomit
> reflex.  Try eating breakfast while looking at the results of a picture
> search for "feces".
>
> It's not about world hunger.
>
> The wealthy nations presently throw away enough food to feed the hungry
> of the world.  Beyond that, even a slight reduction in meat consumption
> would be sufficient to free up enough vegetable calories and protein to
> do the job.
>
> In terms of ecological impacts, the root causes of hunger are
> overpopulation (animals including humans multiply up to the limits of
> their food supply) and overconsumption (e.g. Americans are about 5% of
> the world's people, consuming about 28% of the world's resources).
> There is no real empirical need to persuade you to eat wormburgers
> ("would you like flies with that?").
>
> However, the oligarchy has no desire to offend Big Church by supporting
> family planning and birth control.  And the oligarchy has no desire to
> offend its own major religion, Big Capitalism, by supporting lower
> consumption levels as a cultural value.  Why piss off your cronies, when
> you can manipulate the masses and open up a whole new "market" with vast
> opportunities for profit...?
>
> Notice what wasn't said.
>
> The UN didn't say "encourage family planning."  The UN didn't say "equal
> rights for women" or even "equal education for women", which are known
> to reduce birth rates to sustainable levels and increase economic
> security as women gain choices and power.  The UN didn't say "wealthy
> nations should reduce waste."  The UN didn't say "eat a little less meat
> each week."
>
> Also the UN didn't say "stop growing corn to produce alcohol to put in
> your gas tanks, and use that land to grow food for humans."  And the UN
> didn't say "let's find ways to turn algae into food," algae being an
> abundant source of vegetable matter, usually thought of as Not-Food but
> rarely thought of as Dirt.  How do you feel about eating a burger made
> from algae?  How do you feel about eating a burger made from beetles?
>
> This is a useful technique for analyzing media: looking at what isn't
> said, the problems that aren't mentioned, the solutions that aren't
> discussed, the proposals that aren't on the table.  Very often the
> exclusion zone isn't obvious.  Would you have thought of algae?
>
> What it's really about: shock & awe.
>
> Envision the headline, "UN urges Muslims to eat pork to fight world
> hunger!" or "UN urges Jews to eat shellfish to fight world hunger!"  The
> outrage would be obvious.  Even if you happen to like pork or shellfish,
> the thought of your Jewish and Muslim friends being somehow obligated
> (typically by economic pressure) to eat them, would make you want to
> stand with them and fight for their right to say No.
>
> Eating bugs is part of the cultural "shock and awe" treatment on the
> American public, along with "no more privacy" and "free speech zones"
> and mass foreclosures and domestic drones.  If you can be forced (not by
> threat of prison, but by threat of economic consequences if you don't
> "choose" to do as you're told) to violate one of your most visceral
> personal and cultural limits, a limit that's backed up by your vomit
> reflex, you aren't going to resist when they try to force you to do
> other things against your will.
>
> Your will does not matter to the oligarchy.  Only their will matters.
> And their goal is to impose their will upon yours by every means
> possible.  If they get you to "like it" or at least "adapt," it becomes
> that much easier to get you to "like it" or "adapt" to the next thing
> and then the next.
>
> It's like getting people to "accept" pervasive domestic surveillance by
> first getting them to "accept" torture as policy.  If people don't
> revolt against the biggest outrage of all, they aren't going to revolt
> against the next smaller one, and the next after that.  Failure to
> revolt is acceptance by acquiescence.
>
> Ultimately it's not about the bugs, or even the algae.  It's about
> getting you to submit:  "You are going to do what we tell you.  And you
> are going to like it.  Because we say so."
>
> As far as the oligarchy is concerned, it's all about human husbandry:
> YOU are Food.
>
> -G.  (creative commons; non-commercial use, with attribution)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> sudo-discuss@lists.sudoroom.org
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>

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