It Makes Sense to Eat Lower on the Food Chain

Vasumurti
According to a national Vegetarian Resource Group Poll conducted by Harris Interactive, nearly 15 percent of Americans say they never eat fish or seafood.

The pacific sardine lives along the coasts of North America from Alaska to southern California. Sardines, once a major part of the California fishing industry, are now considered to be “commercially extinct.” Another species classified as “commercially extinct” is the New England haddock. Ecologists have also been concerned about the significant reduction in finfish, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Lake Erie cisco, and blackfins that inhabit Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Over 200,000 porpoises are killed every year by fishermen seeking tuna in the Pacific. Sea turtles are similarly killed in Caribbean shrimp operations.

Some animals are killed because, as carnivores, they compete with the human predator for the right to kill other animals for food, including wild game and domesticated species raised by livestock ranchers. Alaskan hunters are eager to reduce the wolf population in their state because this animal is a predator of moose.

Nor can fish provide any help in alleviating global hunger. There are signs that the fishing industry (which is quite energy-intensive) has already overfished the oceans in several areas. And fish could never play a major role in the worlds diet anyway: the entire global fish catch of the world, if divided among all the world’s inhabitants would amount to only a few ounces of fish per person per week.

The American Dietetic Association reports that throughout history, the human race has lived on “vegetarian or near vegetarian diets,” and meat has traditionally been a luxury. Studies show the healthiest human populations on the globe live almost entirely on plant foods–useful data, given our skyrocketing healthcare costs. Nathan Pritikin, author of The Pritikin Plan, recommended not more than three ounces of animal protein per day; three ounces per week for his patients who had already suffered a heart attack.

Obviously, then, the idea of providing the entire world with a Western diet is quite absurd. But what about satisfying today’s demand for meat–which provides only a fraction of the population with a Western-style diet? If the world population triples in the next 100 years, and meat consumption continues, then meat production would have to triple as well. Instead of 3.7 billion acres of cropland and 7.5 billion acres of grazing land, we would require 11.1 billion acres of cropland and 22.5 billion acres of grazing land.

But this is slightly larger than the total land area of the six inhabited continents! We are desperately short of forests, water and energy already. Even if we resort to extreme methods of population control: abortion, infanticide, genocide, etc…modest increases in the world population during the next generation would make it impossible to maintain current levels of meat consumption.

On a vegetarian diet, however, the world could easily support a population several times its present size. The world’s cattle alone consume enough to feed over 8.7 billion humans.

I Saw “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

It was OK. There was some iffy science stuff, though. GORT (it’s an acronym in the remake) is excessively humanoid, to the point of having clavicles and pectoral muscles. His nano-bots were also excessively like terrestrial insects for something that originated on a completely different planet.

The film’s scientists also act stupid on occasion, like when Dr. Helen Benson assumes Klaatu’s pre-human form had hemoglobin-based blood because it was red. Apparently, in the stoodstilliverse hemoglobin is the only red substance known to science. She then concludes that, since his blood is based on hemoglobin like ours, that he should be given a transfusion! When they said type O- was the universal donor they certainly weren’t fooling around!

TDtESS also suffers from the War of the Worlds Syndrome- a seemingly minor update has torn a gaping hole in the plot. In the WotW remake, it was the addition of the “alien tripods were buried underground” element that made people wonder why the aliens hadn’t been killed by microbes back when they were burying their machines.

In TDtESS the problem is that the claim that life-bearing worlds are incredibly rare claim coupled with Klaatu’s advanced technology; terraforming (actually I think it’s xenoforming when aliens do it…) should be fuckin’ easy with that level of technology. Habitable world should be a dime a dozen! To put this in perspective you should realize that if we had continued our dedication to manned space travel beyond the Apollo program, the idea that our grandchildren could live on Mars without space suits is actually not far fetched.

There were also some problems with pacing in addition to the science stuff, and the ending was rushed, unsatisfying, and left some plot holes. Otherwise, though, it was a pretty decent movie.

A Symbol for Liberalism

For a while I’ve thought it would be pretty cool if there was a symbol for liberalism, something simple and iconic. I whipped up this:

It’s an L (for “liberal,” obviously), with an arrow facing up, symbolizing progress. It also has the added benefit of looking like an arrow taking a left turn, which correlates with liberalisms associations with that direction. Yeah, nothing spectacular, but it drives the point home.

The Diference Between Morality and Religious Morality

Andy Thomson
“The difference between morality and religious ‘morality’ is that morality is doing what is right regardless of what you’re told while religious dogma is doing what we’re told regardless of what is right.”

Proposal for a New Flag of Mars

Both the Mars and Interplanetary Societies have adopted a vertical tricolor flag as the “official” flag of Mars. The colors were drawn from the Mars Trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. This flag has already been used in association with Mars-related research and has even been in space.

However, I don’t think its a satisfactory banner for the future inhabitants of the red planet. For one, the flag is ripped in a very literal way from fiction; its symbolism is therefore rather shallow. The ideas contained in its symbolism are also excessively rooted in what will one day be considered history and will lose a certain amount of resonance with the people who it is supposed to represent. Most people who will live on Mars will live long after terraforming is complete so why root the entirety of the flag’s meaning in that process.

I have created a design for what I would like the flag of Mars to look like, which I feel is both more aesthetically pleasing and holds more symbolic meaning both for humanity as a whole and for the future inhabitants of Mars.

The black background represents space and the red circle represents planet Mars. The blue band represents the Earth’s water and the green represents its land. The bands sit in the background because they are humanity’s past, Mars standing up front represents the progress its inhabitants have made since settling a new world.

In the center is a gold band representing the sun. It is is in the middle because it is common to both Terrans and Martians. It is thinner than the blue and green bands because the sun itself has never nor will ever be a place of human habitation. The total sum of the bands is not as tall as the Martian circle because the past is not as important as the future.

Crime Against Humanity

Personally, I believe that if a military power destroys a museum, library, or any other institution of scientific, historical or cultural significance during armed combat, they should be charged with crimes against humanity. We all lose when that shit happens.

Terraforming Venus with UV-Radiation Emitting “Laser”

Yesterday the thought occured to me that it might be possible to use a satellite equipped with a device capable of aiming a high-powered coherent beam of UV radiation at the atmosphere of Venus to excite significant quantities of upper atmospheric molecules enough that they would be “blown away” into space.

If I remember correctly, UV radiation bombardment is how Mars lost (and continues to lose) its atmosphere. Clearing away the Venusian atmosphere would be a necessary step for lowering its surface temperature and paving the way for habitation. Being solar powered, based in known technologies, and not needing human input would make this plan much less expensive than other previously considered plans which include “manually” scooping up swaths of atmosphere with spacecraft and colossal orbiting space mirrors used to reflect solar energy away from the planet.

Another potentially useful technology would be a lighter-than-Venusian-air blimp whose balloon could be made of similar heat resistant carbon-bearing to those being designed for light sail craft that are powered by lasers. This blimp could drift through the Venusian atmosphere filtering CO₂ through an onboard device that splits it into C and O₂. The “blimp” could be powered thermally using infrared radiation in an analogous way to the use of visible light in solar powered products.

Used in conjunction, devices built along these lines could create a thinner, oxygenated atmosphere that future inhabitants could breathe.

Shankapotomus

What did the E-trade baby mean when he called his golfing buddy a shankapotomus in that commercial?

Damn

I just spent an hour adding books to my Library Thing bookshelf for the sake of having a blog widget. Turns out their widget isn’t wordpress.com compatible. Fucking A.

You Wanna Know What Depresses Me?

You wanna know what depresses me? Knowing that my blog has been visited almost 50,000 times but next to no one thought the things I said were worth commenting on. Not even to tell me they disagree or that I’m a shitty person. I’ve inspired indifference in tens of thousands. That’s depressing.

Steakhouse

I tried Burger King’s Steakhouse burger the other day and really liked it.

Before They’re Buried

Most people die long before they’re buried.

Easier

It’s easier to burn books than to write them.

“Try Anorexia Instead!”

sickpuppy
Today, I told my mom I am bulimic and have been for a few years and that I need help. She responded by saying “Well that’s clearly not working for you. Why don’t you try anorexia.” She then patted me on my head, smiled, and walked away. FML

Wow. I can’t even begin to understand what would posess someone to say that. I hope the bitch falls face-first into a woodchipper.

Our Culture Sucks

I just saw a childrens’ cartoon that was rated PG instead of G because it contained “mild flirtatious language.” Mild flirtatious language is offensive enough to the more conservative parents in our society that ratings organizations take it into consideration when evaluating cartoons.

I also recently learned that people sent outraged letters to newspapers when it was announced that the Pioneer 10 craft would carry a plaque inscribed with a greeting to any extraterrestrial civilization that might recover it on its voyage out of the solar system.

The letter-writers were protesting the use of taxpayer money to send “obscenities” into space. What was so wrong with the plaque? The presence of an entirely non-sexual (and partially censored) image of two unclothed humans.

I hate our society.