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Comment by _xerces_ | Hacker News Reader

When you get time to read the article, you'll see that this point was addressed and that it turns out people won't change their behavior despite knowing for decades that meat can be cruel and terrible for the planet. You need to give people and easy low-friction alternative, and eating beans and rice in place of a juicy burger isn't going to cut it.

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People do change their behavior slowly.

That is why filming on factory farms and slaughterhouses is a jailable offense in Australia and why the meat industry spends billions on handouts worldwide.

Very simple changes like reducing meat in media, mandating a listed vegetarian option at restaraunts, forced transparency on the harms involved, and lowering the massive subsidies would reduce meat consumption considerably.

Or you could do the same thing that was done to almost completely stop the influx of new smokers. Lock the meat behind a cabinet out of sight and include a picture of the animal at the place and time of its death on the packaging.

Post-pandemic I think people are pretty tired of behavior change campaigns like these. What would you do about backlash or counter-movements?

There were numerous tantrums after the cigarettes. If you ignore them and the measures are only a mild inconvenience and you don't have to get people to do something actively they get tired of it and shut up

No, they aren't really addressing the point, they point out that eating more vegetables is better but they don't address the point that creating more satisfying dishes with out having to produce a super processed product that does not resemble a vegetable and requires so many resources is so much better than fake meats at any level.

Fake meat is green washing at its best.

Yes unprocessed vegetables are more sustainable than fake meat. The problem is that we as a society need to reduce the amount of meat that we eat. Fake meat is a drop-in replacement and is more sustainable. Your argument isn’t helping anything except for the meat industry.

It’s not a drop in replacement. It doesn’t taste like meat and it’s expensive.

Everyone I know has tried it and no one has replaced meat in their diet. I know some vegetarians who use them.

If we had a drop in, then I agree with you. But fake meats aren’t going to do it. I think it’s better to have more realistic health campaigns and subsidies.

I suspect this is just these new fake meat startups spending PR to get subsidies set up.

I mean it’s a drop in replacement in the way that an impossible burger easily replaces a beef patty, not that it’s a 1:1 replacement.

I would love better health campaigns and subsidies as well but no one wants be told to not eat meat or to lose the subsidies that make their meat cheap so it’s not going to happen.

Do you think that fake meat companies shouldn’t get subsidies?

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