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Comment by alpineman | Hacker News Reader

You need to go for a walk in nature. There’s more to life than semi-conductors. Sad!

Wanna trade?

Transfer all your technology to us. We'll give you the Amazon.

You're cutting down your rainforest (one of your greatest assets) so middle/upper class people in Sao Paulo can do Churrasco 3X a week and have so much meat left over they have to throw it away. It has nothing to do with technological development, sorry.

Amazon region is rich in rare earths, which are of industrial and geopolitical importance. Should Brazil ever develop advanced semiconductor industries, we might need to exploit those natural resources.

I take it you won't object then?

Sure, I won't object if you have a few mines for rare earths, if you stop deforestation for cattle feed (90%) and deforestation for cheap metals (iron etc - which is the other 10%). 1% for rare earths would be fine tbh. However this is not why the rainforest is being cut down. It's being cut down so that people can eat beef multiple times per week (with the resulting public health crisis that will come from that).

Brazil is literally the world's soy farm, and even that position is shaky since China continues to invest in Africa to cut us out and France continues to block European economic deals with Brazil.

Why on Earth would I want to stop deforestation? Sounds like something that will obviously harm the only major industry we still have.

Because deforestation will mean your farmers across the country won't get reliable rainfall. That sounds like something will obviously harm your entire agriculture industry and also put your food supply at risk.

And for what? Completely unnecessary decadent meat consumption (50% more meat consumption per capita than Germany)? Good luck with that.

You say that as though the Amazon is the only place on earth rich in rare earth minerals. It isn't - many places have them, a number have more than the Amazon.

Rare earths are not rare - the 'free minerals' are rare (non existent) to find "just laying about" as they bind to other elements and compounds in complex hard to unbind ways.

What the planet is rather short of is good, high quality, original condition rain forests.

Amazon also contains petroleum. Would you oppose Petrobrás if it decided it was worth it to get it out of the ground?

"i'm sorry you can't afford food, but have you thought about going on a hike?"

Meat consumption per capita (kg/person)

US 122.1

Brazil 104.6

France 80.3

Germany 70.7

World average 45.1

Rainforests are being cut down to feed cattle so people can eat beef multiple times per day. It has nothing to do with not being able to afford food.

liar, liar, pants on fire.

I'll link what you're referring to - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-supply-per-person

It's the meat supply not consumption :) Very disingenuous to include world average there too. The number is brought down but countries whose main diets are vegetable based.

That's meat supply inside the country, domestic, not including exports.

FAO figures: production + imports − exports (± stock changes) = meat available in the country

Or, if you prefer a Brazilian source, here is one confirming 105kg per person of 'internal availability' inside the country after exports: https://seucreditodigital.com.br/disponibilidade-carnes-bras...

Brazil's 104.6 is what is available after net exports. With exports it's more like 148(!)

And yes of course vegetable based diets are included. That's a perfectly reasonable and in many ways healthier diet, followed by individuals in countries across the world. It makes no sense to exclude it.

am I talking with an LLM?

you don't even acknowledge that you're wrong on your initial response and just pivot to the first thing you could anchor on (vegetarian diets).

There is effectively no practical difference between supply and consumption once you isolate domestic use?

What do you think happens to that supply if it isn't exported? Why do you think they supply that much if no one is eating it?

Maybe this is helpful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

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