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thriving_earthw

22 karma · joined August 21, 2026

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thriving_earthw··on Democrats launching congressional investigations into SpaceXAI, META and Apple
If your political enemies have committed crimes they should be held accountable for them
thriving_earthw··on Mini brain organoids ‘reading’ Braille key step towards biohybrid computing
Maybe a materialist biological exceptionalism position could be that biological substrates are capable of sending kinds of signals that silicon substrates are not, in the sense that brain matter especially might give rise to far greater complex processing in ways that we don't know about or appreciate yet, and which we may discover can't be efficiently recreated in silicon?

I don't know if I buy that argument or even if it makes sense. But yeah this all smacks inextricably of soul talk.

thriving_earthw··on Alternatives to animal testing are finally taking off
There really is. And it's worth making the effort! Wishing you luck.
thriving_earthw··on Bringing the magic: Google breaks open a bottleneck in quantum computing
I love that the researcher in the video is just hanging out in her living room and holding her cat while recording her portion of the explainer
thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
Rational compassion being perhaps a distinctively human trait, needless animal slaughter and suffering is far more ruinous to my humanity.

Also the small farmers you are romanticizing hardly exist anymore precisely because of the returns to scale that lead large resource efficient factory farms to dominate.

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
Having to forcibly restrain an animal is clear evidence that they don't like it, otherwise I don't know what clear evidence you would accept. A good proxy for whether an animal likes something is when it shows aversive behavior around that thing!

The fact that your cat needs the medicine just means that the discomfort you are inflicting on your cat is ultimately with its best interest in mind. When we hurt an animal, or even kill one with its best interest in mind, we do it out of compassion.

When we forcibly impregnate an animal repeatedly and then take away it's calf (cows being viviparous animals, this causes them suffering), that is not in their best interest. Their suffering is not benefiting them, it benefits us.

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
We eat far more meat now at a time when far far fewer people are personally slaughtering animals than ever before in human history, so I think the claim checks out.

People who kill animals themselves regularly are probably subsistence farmers who consider meat a luxury, and what's more, the way they killed them was probably nothing like the incredibly high volume processing that goes on in a modern slaughterhouse.

I definitely think that if most people had to visit a modern factory farm and see the life cycle of one of these animals, kill it and process it, they would probably be shocked at what is legal.

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
What metrics?

https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/how-healthy-are-the-impossib...

This comparison seems to suggest they are very similar. The fact that impossible burgers are vastly less resource intensive to produce and don't involve killing an animal for no good reason is an incredible deal.

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
Something like 70% of all antibiotics used worldwide go to farm animals, so in a sense, they are already pumped full of drugs keeping them happy because the drugs prevent them from dying at higher rates from disease.

https://ourworldindata.org/antibiotics-livestock

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
This is called moral progress.

Also South Korea didn't end their dog meat industry because of international pressure, it's because incomes have been steadily rising and more households are purchasing dogs as companion animals and developing moral concern for them.

Compassion for animals isn't some U.S. conspiracy. There are animal rights activists all over the world.

And Halal slaughter is not humane by any means, but neither is slaughtering an animal with western stunning methods. 90%+ of pigs in the UK for example are stunned using C02 gas. I encourage you to watch undercover footage of this happening.

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
You mean no more raising tens of millions of pigs and billions of chickens in intense confinement?

Don't threaten me with a good time!

thriving_earthw··on Where's the Beef?: The lab-grown-meat revolution that wasn't
They have to forcibly hold them in place. You have to do this with pretty much all artificially inseminated animals.

Rape is not a terrible word to describe forcible penetration.

thriving_earthw··on Speaking with the Mind – Neuralink [video]
I think "it's not pretty" is doing a lot of work here.

As necessary as animal testing may be (disputable) you aren't allowed to violate animal welfare laws to do it. Not to mention that violating those laws in the course of experimentation compromises the experimental validity of your results. And it's alleged that Neuralink did just that.

https://www.pcrm.org/ethical-science/animals-in-medical-rese...

thriving_earthw··on Speaking with the Mind – Neuralink [video]
Man. Well at least all those macaques didn't die for nothing.
thriving_earthw··on Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route
I don't think they'd use it, no. They seem to have behaved pretty rationally in response to foreign powers meddling in the region to me. You can wring your hands about them funding terror groups, but it's nothing that we and the brits haven't done over the decades in the region. Their resistance to Israel isn't irrational either.
thriving_earthw··on Four Weeks of a Vegan Diet Alter Signs of Inflammation and Aging
It's still in the early commercialization stages, but I think the best solution to this is lab grown meat for pets.

https://meatly.pet/

^ that's an example of one I found.

thriving_earthw··on Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route
They want to nuke the land they consider holy?
thriving_earthw··on Four Weeks of a Vegan Diet Alter Signs of Inflammation and Aging
It is absolutely not "very hard." It is challenging at first because like anything else, the startup costs of new habit formation can be high. But tofu, soy milk, seitan, tempeh, lentils, and many other plant protein sources are highly available and easy to cook with once you try. Been at it for a few years myself and at this point, it's extremely easy. I take protein shakes when working out, just like I did when I ate animal products.

Everyone is different, but if you weren't actually able to hit protein macros then I think that's a skill that isn't too hard to improve for most people (if they have a decent reason for wanting to go vegan in the first place).

thriving_earthw··on Four Weeks of a Vegan Diet Alter Signs of Inflammation and Aging
We need to collectively evolve as a species past intensive industrial animal confinement. To think, we can be more compassionate and don't need to sacrifice our health, and may in fact be able to live healthier!
thriving_earthw··on Scientists Find Worms in Almost Every Fish in a Tuna Haul – 96% Were Infected
Poor fish!
thriving_earthw··on The Feeling of Power (Asimov, 1958)
Thank you!
thriving_earthw··on When fruit is scarce, these monkeys hunt animals
Is this just based on that one video or is there something more to this
thriving_earthw··on The Feeling of Power (Asimov, 1958)
Epub version is 170mb — is there an easy way to compress or download in a format I can send to an e-reader?