I think that it is like any other country.
The USA has existed for 232 years. But Alaska and Hawaii only joined in 1959. New Mexico joined in 1912. And has been divided for 1.7% of the time (4 years of civil war) while still was incomplete.
All nations sell the idea that has longer histories that they really have. The concept of nation is a useful improvement over tribalism and city-states. But, it is just fiction. Nations are created, changed and destroyed all the time.
So, you are completely right about China being largely a myth.
Successive Chinese governments have of course had many periods of great instability over history. But the Chinese nation as a people (or at least the Han conception of it) has existed for far longer than any one government, and stability, unity, harmony, etc. have been a part of that nation's identity and ideals for a long time.
While the outbreak may not be as immediately dangerous to humans as SARS, the official response should worry Chinese, as well as public health authorities globally. Thanks to its geographic position on migratory bird routes, its vast and largely unregulated livestock industry, and its weak public health institutions, China is a prime candidate to serve as the incubator for the next pandemic capable of killing millions of humans. Ensuring that Beijing responds to that epidemic in a responsible manner must be a global priority.
The title is alarmist, but the article backs it up somewhat. The handling of this pandemic (even if it only affects pigs) can tell us how they may inadequately handle an epidemic among people. It also factors into inflation in the Chinese economy as pork is one of the primary sources of protein for many Chinese. Food supply instability in China is good for no one.
My thesis is that food price instability (say, a doubling of prices) in a short time would lead to massive social unrest, possibly revolution.
China expends enormous resources to maintain its country (arguably, it's more efficient as 3 or 4 separate countries), and a jump in the cost of food would disrupt that delicate balance.
The reduction in pigs will drop demand and price for soy which is already commonly used for meat/protein substitutes (like the Impossible Burger v2 is a lot of soy, and raw TVP is pretty close to ground meat in texture). I don't think that people will be happy, but they aren't going to have to go hungry unless they're carnivores.
Aside from the very good points I've already seen pointed out...
The prediction is that 30% of China's pig herd will die. Pork is their staple protein and if 30% of their supply disappears the price will go through the roof and then it will be almost impossible to deny on Chinese media that there's an out-of-control epidemic and the government isn't prepared to do anything about it.
I doubt it (but I don't know). Pork doesn't store well, your best best is freeze it, but that requires constant energy. You can salt it as well. Either way though after 1 year quality goes way down.
China does have large stores of Corn and Soybeans, which they can feed to pigs. Grain stores fairly well once you dry it, no need for expensive refrigeration. Quality goes down over time, but you can still get several years. Since most of this is feed to animals quality loss is not as big a deal (poison of a few animals is an economic issue - moral concerns can be hid from consumers much easier)
> Your best best is freeze it, but that requires constant energy.
Making up the difference between freezing and the ambient temperature requires constant energy.
China has access to a lot of land where the mean average temperature gets close to or below freezing[1], they've also got access to permafrost[2] areas.
Whether they have long-term strategic stockpiles of meat is another matter, but I don't see why running such a stockpile wouldn't be relatively cheap for them given their access to cold areas. Once you decide to store meat long enough it makes sense to put it on a train to Tibet instead of paying to keep it in a freezer in the heat by the coast.
A strategic stockpile of luxury goods would be silly.
In the event of a major war or other event that causes supply problems you need to provide people with their basic food needs. Doing that with canned goods or even protein bars/powder to the extent that a balanced diet requires some amount of protein is much more cost-effective and reliable.
Similarly you'd stock up on something like canned lentils or chickpeas if you're worried about the carbohydrate supply, not stock up on frozen bread.
But China might enact such a policy of stocking up on luxury goods since they're continually paranoid that their dictatorship is balanced on the knife-edge of "don't mind the totalitarianism as long as the trains run on time".
It's an opinion piece, seemingly subjective statements like this one is common place.
The key takeaway is the slow and ineffective response from Chinese authorities at tackling the spread of African Swine Fever. China's response to SARS attracted a lot of criticism and the swine fever epidemic has shown that a lot of the flaws haven't been fully fixed. This paves the way for a future epidemic that may infect humans. It is somewhat alarmist but also very valid concern.
An infectious disease that doesn't impact humans can be just as destructive on our society by destroying economically important livestock or crops.
Any new pandemic can come mainly from two possible sources:
- mutation of an existing pathogen affecting humans
- mutation of an existing animal pathogen so that it can start infecting humans
The first is more likely with inadequate treatment and lack of containment, the latter is more likely if there's more exposure of humans to the animal virus. With 130 million pigs infected with this disease there's quite a lot of exposure.
Viral reassortment and horizontal gene transfer are particularly of concern in swine, because they can host many viruses that also infect humans. If a novel swine virus combines with one of the zoonotic diseases a human pandemic is possible.
Reassortment in swine is a primary mechanism for how the influenza virus mutates so often, making it a moving target for vaccines.
Viruses have a nasty tendency to move from animals to people, particularly in places like China where people and animals are very dense and sanitation is horrible.
What I worry about is that an increasing population also means an increasing "surface area" where diseases can occur in the first place, not just that they spread faster.
From my understanding, even for nationals, the system is more like a binary blacklist at the moment, where a default on a large debt will result in a court adding someone to that list. As a foreigner visiting recently, I was more affected by private credit scores e.g. Alibaba's 'Sesame' credit score. Specifically, trust-based things like renting a shared bike required a deposit because my Alipay credit score was too low.
That seemed sort of reasonable. Less reasonable were the nags I got through the app to invest in Ali investment funds or make purchases to improve my credit score.
The latest article I read in the Chinese press about social credit development said including foreigners in the system was a high priority. Right now, foreigners in China have a hard time getting any kind of credit (eg I had to get a credit card through my wife), so the government wants to fix that. I doubt it will apply to non residents, however.
Depending on your point of view. It is annoying not being trusted at all, but at least I can take the fast train even if I post unharmonious content on hacker news.
You're capable of posting unharmonious content on HN with no (visible) consequence, not because you're a foreigner, but because you post the content here.
Having said that we see China pushing their market power on brands (the Leica advertisement). Chinese security are contacting Uyghurs in Australia pressuring them to provide information, DNA samples.
I wonder if anyone looking to do business in the future might think twice about hiring anyone on a list in China....
Attempts to cause huge changes to global industries, like changing meat production to use fewer antibiotics, can almost never be brought about by suggesting that 7 billion people make a personal choice to eat less meat. That message will never be heard by the meat industry decision makers who are deciding how and how much to medicate their animals. But regulations directly impact their decision-making process.
The consumers ultimately will decide the fate of the mean industry. However, I doubt that consumers will change their habits in a way that will be in their best interest.
Consumers can choose to buy meat from local sources that are ethically raised and at a scale that doesn't negatively impact the local environment. Yes, that will probably cost more then what's at the grocery store. But do we need to eat meat every day, week, or month?
To put all the responsibility on the meat industry, policy, and the government is in my opinion the wrong approach. I think we should be educating consumers and influencing change through the scale of economics.
This needs a multipronged approach. Regulations, where regulations work, consumer advocacy where consumer advocacy works, plant-based meat emulations where emulations work, and so on. Honestly though, I'm quite pessimistic that this problem will be solved in the next 50 years. As China and India have become more affluent, their meat consumption has only increased, just the way it happened in the west. And I know from looking around that even educated people here don't care how their meat was farmed.
that's a very US-centric way of seeing things. Market forces have proven to be a very bad instrument to pursue the collective good (time and time again, really). when the situation gets dire enough draconian regulation on the meat industry is inevitable.
There are many examples where global industries seeing real change based on individual preferences. Organic food may only be 5% of the US market, but that’s still a noticeable and growing change based on personal preference.
The critical threshold is people having equivalent options. If meat substitutes become indistinguishable they are going to explode across the market, just look at the adoption of filler in many food segments.
It already has happened. Fast food chains have at least had to apply some humane standards to the meat producers they buy from thanks to pressure from the public. And many of them are also rolling out meat substitutes due to customer demand.
Most social change comes from the ground up, not the top down. Companies like Tyson aren’t inherently evil, they just prioritize profits. Tyson is investing in meat replacements right now because customers have said they want them.
Feel free to criticize people’s personal choices on anything from diet and exercise, to their career path or politics. Also perhaps prepare to possibly lose some friends in the process.
In my opinion the absolute overriding ability to create change in the world is to create a superior substitute and evangelize the fuck out of it.
Want a meat free future? Do everything you can to seek out, consume, and tell everyone you know about amazing meat-free substitutes. Hand out Impossible Burgers for Christmas (or your chosen holiday). Tweet recipes and YouTube videos showing great results using the product. Become a meat-free fanboy and worship at that alter of awesome tasting non-meat.
It’s a lot less onerous than the holier than thou criticism and orders of magnitudes more effective — if the product is worth its salt.
If the substitutes suck, they will not catch on. The early adopters (zealots) will pay a huge premium to obtain a premium quality substitute and then economy of scale can drive everything from there.
The vast majority of the world will not buy meat if a better, cleaner, safer, tastier, cheaper, and sexier alternative is available. Everything about how we make and package meat is pretty gross (can you say pink slime without cringing?) but the end product is insanely delicious and our brains go wild for it. Replicate that.
“Abstinence education” is not going to win on remotely the same order of magnitude, and mostly is just plain annoying.
It’s not really about convenience. The vast majority of humans simply can not afford to carry the personal cost of avoiding the negative externality of their meat consumption.
That is to say, the vast majority of humans can not afford to sacrifice not eating meat to get their protein, due to a combination of inavailability of suitable substitutes of equal or greater quality, and also the perceived quality of life sacrifice, the associated mental, emotional, and social costs of doing this.
For people whose diet and indeed lifestyle is established in part as being meat-eaters, switching is costly in more ways than just financial. And even if a theoretical diet could substitute for the missing meat which costs the same or less, in practice a satisfying entirely non-meat diet for most meat eaters would be expensive in time and money to achieve.
It’s not clearly an ethical win to demand all of humanity to pay the cost to switch when a better alternative is possible; go out and do the fantastically hard work of inventing a better non-meat. So good that it’s not a cost but a benefit to switch to it. And then (almost) everyone will.
I see huge parallels between this and, for example, electric vehicles. Forcing everyone to switch too early is extremely costly. But through technical innovation practically everyone will drive electric because it’s so much better for them.
In Nature wisdom and necessity converge, while in an artificial setting, they often diverge.
Under evolution (in the prehistoric epoch just before the evolution of Homo Sapiens) the "wise" course of action was always the same as the necessary. Non-sentient living beings choose the optimal course of action to the limit of their abilities (due to evolution.)
It was only once we evolved our higher-order thinking and communication abilities that it became possible to generate contexts (cities and farms) wherein the right thing to do diverges from the necessary thing to do. We have fooled our own "bio-computers".
I think we need a kind of civilization "reset". I don't mean a violent upheaval, rather we should develop lifestyles that are ecologically harmonious without giving up technology.
One possibility is a system of food production called "Permaculture" which I like to describe as "applied ecology". Speaking to your point:
> So if the ethical thing to do is ever not the most convenient, humanity is doomed.
The ethical (in the sense of ecologically sound) is fun and convenient. It's fun to live in harmony with Nature. I think we can cure civilization of its discontents.
In many places of the world, especially outside of cities, staying healthy without meat is challenging. Even where I am now in a midsized city in the United States, I have to drive 40 minutes to find a store with tempeh. Even if access wasn't a problem, I had to do a lot of research to make sure I'm hitting micronutrient targets, and then buy a number of supplements. It's too complicated.
I agree that there is a problem. But once again, pointing at individuals is not productive. Changes like this have to happen at a more centralized level. People (and businesses) will follow the path of least resistance and as long as producing and consuming meat is the easiest path, that's what most people will do.
There are tons of easy alternatives for vegetable protein, including good old lentils, beans, chickpeas, etc. You don't have to go out of your way to buy tempeh or gourmet vegetarian food.
Hitting high protein or low carb macros is difficult without some kind of protein supplement. I'm currently targeting 50% fat, 25% protein, 25% carbs for endurance reasons. Of course this isn't applicable to everyone. But it is applicable to anyone who needs to keep carbs low for health reasons, or anyone with some kind of athletic hobby.
Also bear in mind that not all protein is created equal. If wheat gluten wasn't low in lysine, I'd eat a lot more of it.
1. "healthy" doesn't mean living a long life free of ailments. It means achieving your standard of athletic performance as a hobby.
2. "challenging" doesn't mean difficult. It means doing some research, buying more tempeh at once and maybe freezing it, or just buying a protein supplement.
> "challenging" doesn't mean difficult. It means doing some research, buying
That's already too much. I can do that, and you can do that. Our jobs are to research things and then implement them. Most people will not or can not do this. Expecting them to is a waste of time.
The way to solve this would be to de-incentivize meat production on the supply side, and encourage food distributors to fortify food with micronutrients that are commonly missing in vegetarian diets (vitamin B12, calcium, etc). Anything short of this is not going to do much except turn people off from being vegetarian.
I'm curious what else you think is missing in a vegan/vegetarian diet, because calcium is not one of them, and even "omnivores" are recommended to supplement B12 - it's produced by soil bacteria that we would in the past get from fresh vegetables, and that's how animals should get it, too, but even now meat animals are given B12 supplements.
Calcium is most certainly an issue. A lot of vegan dairy substitutes are already fortified with calcium for this specific reason.
I'm still learning this stuff myself. But from the things I've read so far, vegans (especially the WFPB variety) can have difficulty getting: Vitamin B12, calcium[0], iron, and possibly a balanced amino acid profile if they have elevated protein requirements. A diet too high in carbs and too low in fat and protein can also cause long term problems like candida overgrowth and hormonal imbalances.
I just want to make sure I am clear on the argument you are making. Are you saying the average person can't easily be healthy without meat? That it would require them to do research? That it is easier for them to be healthy on meat-including diet without doing any research?
I agree that none of this matters as long as people can eat meat. They will if they can.
> I just want to make sure I am clear on the argument you are making
Yes, that's a decent summery. Populations would be less healthy if meat just suddenly disappeared with no other changes. Although, in the United States at least, we massively over-consume meat to the detriment of our health. But we rely on it as a source of many micronutrients that we otherwise wouldn't get by default.
Additionally, these changes will never happen without regulatory changes on the supply side to artificially drive up the cost of meat production.
Beans, lentils, and chickpeas are not a substitute for meat, in terms of either nutrition or flavor. Vegetable protein does not equal meat protein in terms of amino acids. Plant proteins are typically low in methionene, tryptophan, lycine, and isoleucine [0]. My point is not that vegetarianism is completely impossible, but that it is hard to get everything necessary. This is especially true for anyone who is trying to build muscle or get in shape. It certainly doesn't taste as good, especially if you don't want to take tons of time cooking.
It still takes "gourmet" vegetarian food to compare to regular meat.
> There’s no official RDA for lysine, but according to research, you typically want to aim for about 12 mg per kg of bodyweight.
> For example, a 170 lb person needs 924 mg per day, or more.
So a cup of soybeans providers 1.33 grams, oats, lentils and any bean at least a gram per serving.
Oatmeal for breakfast, nuts for a snack and a mix of vegetables with some beans or tofu for dinner and you exceed the RDA for every one of those amino acids you've listed. All healthy things you should be incorporating into your diet anyway (fiber rich). So while a single food may not meet the RDA alone, it seems very easy to meet with a combination of common foods in a plant based diet.
Not to mention nutrients that are supplemented in vegan diets often are also supplemented in omni diets (B12 in meat and Vitamin D in milk, for example, are only because of supplementation and fortification).
> It certainly doesn't taste as good, especially if you don't want to take tons of time cooking.
> It still takes "gourmet" vegetarian food to compare to regular meat.
I had plenty of terrible meat meals and many amazing vegan dishes. I would say the standard American diet lacks a lot of knowledge about tasty ways to cook plants, but they do exist and they aren't hard. Ethiopian and Indian cooking, for example, have a strong tradition of plant based dishes that are easy to make. Many other cuisines can easily be adapted.
Well said. I generally also like to point out that many meats are eaten with some kind of flavouring/ sauce to make them taste better. These flavourings and sauces are nearly entirely made of vegetables and fruits...
I'd say that's pretty subjective. I haven't missed meat from a taste perspective. The smell actually starts to get a little bit repulsive when I go for months without it.
The rest of your point is very relevant though. I supplement with whey protein. But if it wasn't for that, I'd really be struggling to hit amino acid targets. Being an athletic vegan is borderline impossible in my opinion.
> Being an athletic vegan is borderline impossible in my opinion.
There are a great number of vegan athletes that disagree. E.g. Patrik Baboumian, one of the strongest people alive, is vegan. America's best Olympic weight lifter (maybe not currently but has been), Kendrick Ferris, is vegan. Keep an eye out for the release of the moving "The Game Changers" [1] for more.
Just copying and pasting this link from a sibling comment to yours to point out that oatmeal, nuts, and beans are generally good enough to cover the amino acids that are otherwise hard to get from a vegan diet https://vegfaqs.com/important-vegan-amino-acids/
Agreed that it's really hard to be an athletic vegan, but seems doable if you hit these amino targets and still supplement with pea protein or something.
You're right that taste is subjective, and that what tastes good for one may not for another. That is a large part of the reason that I take issue when people self-righteously say I should be eating a vegan diet, eating insects, etc.
Which is really pathetic if you think about it. Cutting way down or eliminating meat is actually extremely easy, especially anywhere in the US. But people value Instagramming their bacon too much.
As a species we have a very heavy karmic payback coming and these kinds of attitudes are a big part of the reason.
Also you don't need tempeh. Beans are available everywhere, just as nutritious, and dirt cheap.
I'm not defending eating meat here. All I'm saying is you might want to broaden your own horizons as to why people eat it.
To pretend things like taste don't exist makes your argument disingenuous and makes anyone likely to dismiss your arguments right away.
If you're going to boil it down so simply, there are cruelty free sources of meat, and since you choose to ignore that and your only argument is cruelty... I'm just going to ignore everything else you say, because the one area I do understand, I understand you're making stuff up about.
This isn't spreading awareness, this is how you make people sick of your cause. This is like the angry preacher who goes down to college campuses and yells that sex is the devil. After enough missing-the-point, anyone not on your side gives up listening or actively assumes anything else you say is also missing the point.
How is it a demographic problem? Who is forcing you to eat meat? Most societal changes are brought about by individuals with the courage to question something that is wrong but socially normalized.
Reducing systemic, global issues to the actions of the individuals is simplistic. It's technically true that if everyone stopped eating meat tomorrow these industries would collapse, but it's also true that if people would simply stop killing each other, we wouldn't need prisons. People are not autonomous rational actors, we're creatures with a context, wills, and desires. "Simply be more virtuous" glosses over why the choices people have to make and are able to make exist in the first place. Don't eat meat, sure, I won't argue that in the right context that's the virtuous choice, but why is it on US to change, rather than the people at the actual levers of power?
Also, "simply be more virtuous" is never a solution that has ever worked. I've had similar conversations - "getting a job is easy, just pick a good major and work hard like I did." Sure, but what did standing there and saying that do? When I go meet with the city council, and I say those exact words, what has been accomplished? What policy can be written, what programs can be started, based off casting an accusation like that?
Who is forcing you to use single use plastic? Who is forcing you to drive a car powered by an internal combustion engine? Who is forcing you to eat food produced on degrading land? That's not how the tragedy of the commons works.
> Most societal changes are brought about by individuals with the courage to question something that is wrong but socially normalized.
[Citation needed]
The truth is that most sweeping societal change is driven by a central government and always has been. Everything from the transition to city-states, the industrial revolution to civil rights. Individuals convince their central governments to act, but you can't just convince an entire population to change their mind without a monopoly on violence.
Are people "forced" to celebrate Valentine's day? Are they "forced" to wear blue jeans? Listen to either rock OR pop OR rap OR country?
Demographic == culture. We eat meat because we eat meat because we ate meat, for ten thousand years.
Do you blame a child for their "choice" of religion? Do you blame a family that drives to work over taking the bus, which sucks 4 hours extra out of their day because they live in Pocatello, Idaho and don't have much of a transit system?
If they're smart enough to subdue me and my entire civilization using technology unfathomable to my puny human mind then I guess I don't really get a say and it doesn't matter what I think anyway, now does it?
There's an analogy to livestock in there if you look hard enough.
We're not talking about marginal intelligence difference. You're making the exception the rule. We're talking different species here. The food chain applies and if you're not at the top there's no advocate built into nature for you. You're a commodity and the only thing securing your survival is your value and the responsibility of the species above you.
Of course I would. Do you think my lack of objection somehow shows a moral inconsistency? I think you do -- but that's only true if you project a very rigid and symmetrical concept of moral intuition on to me, which I promise you I don't hold.
Humans are omnivores, and thrive by variety as Pollock has laid out nicely.
While it is true that a largely plant based diet is probably a good idea, all throughout history being healthy has implied that humans go for a large variety of food sources - conditional on what is available.
As omnivores, we need many nutrients from diverse sources. Good quality protein that is difficult or impossible to get from "local plant sources" in many places. High quality fat, which is also difficult to get from plants in many places and certain Vitamins.
The constraints here are wealth, logistics and locality. In Western countries, plant based diets are a good alternative. But good luck sourcing everything locally or not relying on expensive supplements in many areas where humans live!
China is a poor country. So are many other places. Restricting dietary choices is simply not feasibly for them.
Eating meat can be considered an unnecessary luxury for some areas of the world, true. But not everywhere.
There’s a lot of debate right now about what the healthiest diet for people is. In my opinion the evidence that a good plant based diet is the best we can do is pretty convincing.
But just for the sake of argument let’s say that a small amount of meat is helpful or even necessary. We’re still far far away from the amount of meat people just casually and thoughtlessly eat every day in most developed countries, which also necessitates all the horrible cruelty and environmental destruction of our current farming methods.
So if for whatever reason you feel like you need to or deserve to keep eating meat, you can still cut way down and make sure the meat you eat doesn’t come from doing things to animals that would have you sent to jail for doing to a dog.
You don't need meat at all. Meat is a comfort food. Don't worry about b12, you can find it mushrooms, nutritional yeast, supplements. in the past we'd get it from fungus, etc.
You can get all the nutrients you need from a whole foods plant based diet. No one need ever get heart disease or stroke, simply switch to a whole foods/plant based diet.
Animals get their protein from plants. Eating meat is just eating recycled proteins. If you want to get high quality original protein, you need to eat meat. Vegetables and Beans are extremely high in protein (over 15% of calories come from protein!). Just check out this calculator which shows all the nutrients normalized on a per calorie basis: https://kale.world/c
This is going to sound shocking, but the following is all true. and if you ask the people who actually do the research on this stuff, you'll see that it's right:
In the last couple decades protein needs have been grossly exaggerated. The media has brain washed us into thinking that we need vast amounts of protein. You actually only need 5%, according to the WHO. I know some countries will say 10%. In any case, It's almost impossible to not get enough protein from plant based whole foods.
Indeed, we do need some meat. With that said, Americans would be wise to eat more organ meat: often very healthy, and contains micronutrients we can't get elsewhere. Some of these include things we simply can't synthesize ourselves. We do need meat, though we would be wise to consume more of the whole animal, both to minimize waste and get healthier.
Methionene, tryptophan, lycine, and isoleucine are four essential amino acids present only in low concentrations in most veggie/nut/legume proteins. That's why these proteins are called incomplete. We need them to build and maintain muscle and tissue. I'm sure there are more.
Any meat under any circumstances? This makes your argument seem broad to the point of being useless. You're talking about a specific system, much like one can criticize ICE automobiles for many valid and specific reasons, but those reasons don't apply to the entire concept of motorized transportation.
That's filmsy grandstanding.
With current tech, you can not switch the world's population to a vegetarian diet without obliterating most existing forests.
Agriculture is one of the prime reasons for deforestation (and in some countries, pollution), while pasture doesn't really need arable land.
Ironically, conversations geared towards reaching real solutions are not as prone to receiving widespread attention since they involve multivariate discussion and critical thought. Meanwhile, flimsy grandstanding is a popular way of making people feel moral while pushing any real conversations aside and therefore making the problem worse.
It should say: "For millenia, the Chinese government’s top priority has been the preservation of social stability."