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  • Nagarjuna [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I swear you can have the worst takes and if you say “material conditions,” then hexbear will upvote you 50 times.

    You want materialism? The current level of meat consumption in the US is propped up by exploitation of migrant labor and an extractive mode of agriculture which is unsustainable and relies on external inputs like fertilizer which are themselves the product of other extractive industries.

    We could dramatically reduce meat consumption without any technological changes by:

    –Paying meat packers a living wage

    –Organize Whole Foods and Wal-Mart, driving up meat cutters’ wages

    –Stop subsidizing meat

    –Stop subsidizing feed crops

    –Switch to permacultural farming practices

    Banking on a tech breakthrough is ideological in the sense that it protects the status quo and marshals venture capital into mostly speculative assets.

    Additionally, convincing people to go vegetarian is not idealist. Mass media has a huge effect, and using it to encourage vegetarianism is a material process. So either, we can take material measures to encourage vegetarianism, or you don’t believe we’ll ever wield power. Based on your defense of lab meat (a vc grift similar to tech start-ups), I think it’s the latter.