I went down the internet rabbit hole trying to figure out wtf vegan cheese is made of and I found articles like this one speaking praises of new food tech startups creating vegan alternatives to cheese that Actually work like cheese in cooking so I was like huh that's neat and I looked up more stuff about 'precision fermentation' and. This is not good.

Basically these new biotech companies are pressuring governments to let them build a ton of new factories and pushing for governments to pay for them or to provide tax breaks and subsidies, and the factories are gonna cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require energy sources. Like, these things will have to be expensive and HUGE

I feel like I've just uncovered the tip of the "lab grown meat" iceberg. There are a bajillion of these companies (the one mentioned in the first article a $750 MILLION tech startup) that are trying to create "animal-free" animal products using biotech and want to build large factories to do it on a large scale

I'm trying to use google to find out about the energy requirements of such facilities and everything is really vague and hand-wavey about it like this article that's like "weeeeeell electricity can be produced using renewables" but it does take a lot of electricity, sugars, and human labor. Most of the claims about its sustainability appear to assume that we switch over to renewable electricity sources and/or use processes that don't fully exist yet.

I finally tracked down the source of some of the more radical claims about precision fermentation, and it comes from a think tank RethinkX that released a report claiming that the livestock industry will collapse by 2030, and be replaced by a system they're calling...

Food-as-Software, in which individual molecules engineered by scientists are uploaded to databases – molecular cookbooks that food engineers anywhere in the world can use to design products in the same way that software developers design apps.

I'm finding it hard to be excited about this for some odd reason

Where's the evidence for lower environmental impacts. That's literally what we're here for.

There will be an increase in the amount of electricity used in the new food system as the production facilities that underpin it rely on electricity to operate.

well that doesn't sound good.

This will, however, be offset by reductions in energy use elsewhere along the value chain. For example, since modern meat and dairy products will be produced in a sterile environment where the risk of contamination by pathogens is low, the need for refrigeration in storage and retail will decrease significantly.

Oh, so it will be better for the Earth because...we won't need to refrigerate. ????????

Oh Lord Jesus give me some numerical values.

Modern foods will be about 10 times more efficient than a cow at converting feed into end products because a cow needs energy via feed to maintain and build its body over time. Less feed consumed means less land required to grow it, which means less water is used and less waste is produced. The savings are dramatic – more than 10-25 times less feedstock, 10 times less water, five times less energy and 100 times less land.

There is nothing else in this report that I can find that provides evidence for a lower carbon footprint. Supposedly, an egg white protein produced through a similar process has been found to reduce environmental impacts, but mostly everything seems very speculative.

And crucially none of these estimations are taking into account the enormous cost and resource investment of constructing large factories that use this technology in the first place (existing use is mostly for pharmaceutical purposes)

It seems like there are more tech startups attempting to use this technology to create food than individual scientific papers investigating whether it's a good idea. Seriously, Google Scholar and JSTOR have almost nothing. The tech of the sort that RethinkX is describing barely exists.

Apparently Liberation Labs is planning to build the first large-scale precision fermentation facility in Richmond, Indiana come 2024 because of the presence of "a workforce experienced in manufacturing"

And I just looked up Richmond, Indiana and apparently, as of RIGHT NOW, the town is in the aftermath of a huge fire at a plastics recycling plant and is full of toxic debris containing asbestos and the air is full of toxic VOCs and hydrogen cyanide. ???????????? So that's how having a robust industrial sector is working out for them so far.

Radical ideas, but:

Pay people appropriately and enough to live comfortably

Health insurance shouldn't be tied to your job, universal healthcare

Tax the rich

Billionaires shouldn't exist

TRICKLE DOWN DOESN’T WORK; THE ULTRA WEALTHY JUST HOARD IT AND CRUSH EVERYONE ELSE

Getting really tired of capitalism; it doesn't work and is literally destroying the world

As we in the US begin to reach what is traditionally the start of TV seasons and the strike continues. I am imploring people to remember who they actually should be angry with and it’s not the writers or actors. The production entrainment corporations and studios are pretty much flat out refusing to negotiate. They are trying to wait this out so they give can as little as and public opinion is factor in that. They want you to think the writers and actors are being petty and greedy. They aren’t; they trying to ensure that we still have a professional entrainment industry in 10 years where making a living is feasible.

I get that we all want to know that cliffhanger gets resolved, if that character is actually dead, new content cannon content, etc. but without an equitable agreement mitigating on current issues there is a lot to lose. If the corporations and studios win writers’and actors’ control and influence on will erode more and the industry will continue to make decisions that often come down when it comes to renewals, representation, and story based on primarily on profit over quality.

The demands overall have been more than reasonable. However, the executives and owners have not only refused to negotiate in good faith they have mostly refused to negotiate at all. The narrative that there will be no new show or work until the writers/actors decide to call off the strike is a false one. Studios and owners can stop this anytime they want by agreeing to pay members appropriately and treat them basic respect instead of excoriating their labor for every profit they can. Stay angry but know/remember who you should actually be angry with.

What I haven’t seen anyone speaking about is the new twitter policy (and everything else that musky boy has changed about twitter) is really indicative of how “capitalists” view the concept of the marketplace of ideas.

Despite a lot of flaws with the concept, the “marketplace of ideas” is a concept that everyone gets to shout their opinion, and that the “correct” take will be accepted by everyone because it’s the most popular. (Simplified greatly)

With these changes, you see what insecure man children like elon do when they’re not “winning” the marketplace. Unlike what billionaires and those weird fans think, people don’t like to pay money for previously free things. People also generally don’t enjoy blatant hate speech, or billionaire dick riders be boosted in their dash, or even just every 3am thought elon has show up first on their homepage.

Weirdos like musk genuinely believe in the concept of the marketplace of ideas, but are so up their own ass that they cannot fathom that their shitty ideas are not going to flourish in said marketplace. They’re so deluded in the idea that wealth is indicative of intelligence that they don’t know how stupid they are. When thrust into the marketplace of ideas, a place where they (hypothetically) are equal for the first time, their ideas fail.

So what do capitalists do? They buy twitter. They force their employees to boost their tweets. They ban anyone who dissents. They fundamentally change the marketplace.

Again, the ideology of the marketplace of ideas is not super great, like fascists and people who do not want to be killed by said fascists shouldn’t have equal voices, obviously, but it is a commonly accepted idea in western culture, particularly by capitalists. It’s seen as an extension of the “free market” idea that they like to tout (often in defence of monopolies or price gouging, ie “it’s fine, the free market will have someone undercut them! we don’t need government intervention!”).

But there is something deeply ironic that these capitalists, when given a true “free market” / true “marketplace if ideas” they feel the need to change it so much so they they will always be on top.

Not only does it further reveal how much these people are losers, it reveals how their system is so flawed that they need to cheat at their own system that they prop up. They’re not popular, they’re just losers with money.

Yet it is capitalism, with its demands for unlimited maximization of profits and economic growth, that is fundamentally unable to protect the Earth's environment. Both humanity and nature become objects of exploitation under capitalism. Furthermore, the artificial scarcity created by capitalism renders large parts of humanity destitute. Slow Down by Kohei Saito

The Spotify Method

Everyone is clamoring that artists should be paid if their art is used in an AI mashup image. Totally valid argument, not here to discourse the morality or ethics of it. 100% they should get paid, and I think they will, eventually.

Unfortunately, my bet is it will be built like Spotify, or any other streaming service: micropayments.

This is how "pay the artists" is gonna end up, and I guarantee you that this is already being discussed behind closed doors.

There will be nothing to argue about "value", or "quality", or "living wage." Zip-zero-zilch.

Like Spotify artists, image artists will get paid for their work if it is used, and that payment will be something like $0.00021 per use.

Oh, there will be waffling on the exact price and there will Very Good Arguments on Why This is the Best Way Forward despite the fact that it will screw artists over.

Because you need to understand that screwing artists over is not a side effect, it is the GOAL.

Capitalism is about reducing the costs of a product in order to maximize profits. The highest costs of any business anywhere are the human-labor-related costs, and if businesses can squeeze people over quality then they will...because reducing quality might affect sales, but squeezing labor is just "good business practices." Any MBA will tell you that.

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

Me: "hey game developers, especially AAA ones, are getting laid off en-mass and it's awful for our industry" Gamer: "well I only play INDIE games and the problem with AAA games is they are creatively bankrupt"

Me, slamming my fists on the table like a baby: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS IS ABOUT A BUSINESS PROBLEM PERPETUATED BY CAPITALISM NOT A STATEMENT ON CREATIVE DECISION MAKING"

The US is so fucked up. Being forced to stand at your stationary position when there's nothing going on should be straight up illegal, and in a sane society it would be. Unfortunately however, the US economy revolves around a culture of indulgence, and keeping your population tired and weak makes them simultaneously more likely to cave to impulse AND less likely to rebel, which is GREAT for the people in charge.

YOU ARE NOT A CONSUMER, YOU ARE A CARETAKER

YOU WERE NOT BORN TO BUY PRODUCT

GO TO THE CRACKS IN THE PAVEMENT WHERE THE DANDELIONS GROW

TO THE VACANT LOT AND THE EMPTY FIELD AND THE WEEDY ROADSIDE AND THE STRAGGLY REMNANT PATCH OF WOODS WHERE NOTHING IS SOLD TO YOU

LISTEN AS THE TREES SAY REST IN MY SHADE, BREATHE MY BREATH, TAKE AND EAT, IT IS A GIFT

LET THEM TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE

The "trickle down" isn't trickling

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

We cannot solve a problem triggered by capitalism while still preserving capitalism, as there is no other root cause. We must make a thorough break with capitalism to find a solution to climate change. Slow Down by Kohei Saito

the tiktokification of ao3

or: some of you fundamentally misunderstand ao3 and it really, really shows

i was talking about this with a friend a few days ago and since then i've seen multiple posts of various sorts that have just made me think about it more, so. here is me breaking down a disconnect i see particularly with younger members of the marauders fandom (i say marauders specifically just bc that's the only one i'm plugged into):

okay, so i've seen many (usually younger) marauders fans either talking online about how they wish ao3 was more like social media (specifically regarding algorithms) OR talking about ao3/fanfiction/fanfic writers as if they are operating under the same etiquette/guidelines/assumptions they would bring into social media platforms. this ranges from being mildly irritating to genuinely harmful, and i want to talk abt why.

first - you have to understand that social media, in this day and age, exists in a profit economy. and when i say social media here, i'm referring to platforms like tiktok, twitter, instagram, etc. all of these platforms exist in a profit economy where content is a product that can be monetized. this leads to a few important distinctions:

people posting on these social media platforms are generally posting with the intent to get their content seen by as many people as possible, as quickly as possible

they post with this intent because once their content is consumed by enough people, it becomes a product that they can monetize

therefore, if that content gets popular enough, these people can become influencers, where content creation is an actual job and their audience are, in a sort of vague and obscured way, similar to consumers purchasing a product

because of the profit economy surrounding social media, there are certain assumptions + forms of interaction that bleed across almost all social media platforms. the ones relevant to this little essay include:

operating under the assumption that anyone posting anything on the internet wants to go viral, ie. be seen by as many people as possible as quickly as possible in order to grow an "audience"

these influencers are creating content for us, their audience, so they should want to please us. they should also be trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience. therefore, if we dislike their content, we have a right to make that very, very clear.

in that same vein, we have a general right to critique content creators, as they are making a profit and we are the consumers purchasing their product--much like you might feel entitled to a certain standard of service in a restaurant where you are paying for the food.

when you carry these assumptions over to a platform like ao3, it creates problems. why? in a nutshell: because ao3 exists outside the profit economy

ao3 is a non-profit. it does not have an algorithm because it is not trying to sell you anything. this means that the writers posting their work on ao3 are not making a profit. we are not influencers. we are not creating monetized content to sell to a consumer-audience. where consuming content on other social media platforms might be comparable to eating at a restaurant, reading fanfiction on ao3 is more like coming over to someone's house and eating cookies that they made for free. you are in their house. the cookies are free, given as a gift. so what happens when those assumptions outlined above start to bleed over from other social media?

assuming that anyone posting fanfiction online wants their work to go viral -- i've seen this with popular fic writers getting questions like, "are you worried x isn't going to be as popular as y?" those questions are usually not ill-intended, but they demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about why writers post work on ao3. it's not to go viral. it's not to build any sort of online following. most of us who post on ao3 have jobs or schoolwork or other commitments, and writing fanfiction is something done for fun, out of a love for writing. those sharing their work online might be seeking community, but that is fundamentally different from seeking an audience, and in no way involves internet virality. if someone is posting fanfic on ao3 with the hope that it'll "go viral," then they likely either won't continue writing fanfic for long or will reach a point where they have to re-evalute their motivations, because seeking joy and validation by turning your art into a product for consumption just isn't very sustainable.

influencers are creating content for us, so we have a right to let them know if we don't like it -- nope!! fic writers are not influencers. yes, even the popular ones. no matter how much other people might blow their work up on social media, fic writers are still outside the profit economy. they are not creating content for an audience. they are not creating content for you. they are writing because they love it, and they are generously sharing it. if you don't like it, don't interact with it. you are never entitled to loudly and publicly proclaim how much you dislike a fic. i talk about this more here

we have a general right to critique fic writers, the same way we do with content creators/influencers -- again, no. you should not be treating fic writers the way you would treat an influencer on another social media platform, no matter how popular they may be. this is not to say fic writers are beyond all reproach; rather, it is a call-in to check your entitlement. fic writers are not little jesters entertaining in your court. they are not subject to your whims. they do not have to do things for you. they do not have to write things you like. in that post i linked on point 2, i talk about what etiquette might look like if you're really concerned that a fic writer is doing something harmful, but that is not what i'm talking about here. i am talking about the proliferation of negativity i have seen, especially on twitter and tiktok, where people essentially just talk shit about fics or fic writers as though they are entitled to have those fic writers working to please them. this is gross, and it needs to stop. you wouldn't go over to someone's house, eat the cookies they baked to share, and then spit those cookies back in their face and start shouting about what a shitty baker they are. or maybe you would--in which case, congratulations! you are Not A Good Person.

anyway, at the end of the day, a lot of this can be boiled down to: Because ao3 exists outside the profit economy, fic writers are not influencers, and you should never be treating them as though they are. i think i see this disconnect largely with younger people just because they've maybe only ever really understood social media within this sort of influencer-consumer-culture economy, and genuinely don't understand how to interact differently with the internet. so, consider this post a call-in to reevaluate the way you interact with fic writers and the etiquette you use when it comes to engaging with fanfic on ao3! i promise that ao3 being different from social media is a very, very good thing, and also a very, very rare thing, so let's treasure it and focus on fostering community rather than trying to morph it to fit the mould of influencer-audience dynamics that we see almost everywhere else <3

isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day