What's some really unpopular opinion you have?

Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 575 points –

Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it's actually pretty popular.

Do you have some that's really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?

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Everyone should try and reduce the amount of meat they eat as much as they can. Same goes for flying and driving.

Nah. John Kerry and Leo can stop flying everywhere in their private jets. That'll make a bigger difference than anything I do.

The amount they can reduce it by is "all". Claims of any less is simply making excuses for bad behavior.

It's not really that simple and a lot of these things are out of people's control. People who eat more meat than they need to just because they can are the ones who should be changing their behaviour. Not the people who have a constrained diet due to circumstances like poverty or medical conditions. But even then we should be targeting large scale polluters rather than just focusing on individual behaviour change.

But even then we should be targeting large scale polluters rather than just focusing on individual behaviour change.

This 1000%. The campains to put the responsability of recycling and not polluting in the common citizen, given the immensely greater damage companies do, is just a trick to distract, create guilt and not work actively to visibilize the main culprits.

So tomorrow all politicians decide to do the right thing. Meat (just as one example) suddenly costs 5 times as much, because environmental and animal welfare regulations (ones with teeth, this time). In what universe do you think the population would accept that???

ANY sustainable policy change absolutely REQUIRES the support of the voting population. And that's a million times easier in a world with even just 10% vegans. Any collective action is comprised of INDIVIDUALS choosing to participate, and do their part.

Everytime i stand at the bins and try to decide if an item is trash or recycling, i think of the amount of single use packaging trash that every hospital creates and wonder what difference my once-a-day cat food can will make.

I think the taking point you're sharing is actually the one pushed by corporations to curtail social movements that could end them.

I always hear people talk about how ten companies are responsible for 90% of plastic use, one of those is Coca-Cola who create billions of tons of plastic bottles which the CEO swims in like Scrooge McDuck.. oh no, they put drinks in them and everyone that's too lazy to carry a water bottle buys them, drinks the liquid then maybe puts the bottle in the trash, many just throw them on the ground.

You know what happened when we all stopped renting videos? Blockbuster died, also all those VHS cassette stopped being made... Try and imagine how it would look in the coke corporate office if everyone decided they weren't going to buy drinks in plastic bottles. How long would it take for them to turn off the machines when all the outlets cancel their restock orders? How long could they sit paying rent on factories sitting idle and stacked with unsold product?

Of course we need policy and regulation but ignoring our responsibility to make personal choices only benefits the corrupt and damaging corporations, we could crush them so easily but instead of trying it's now popular to pretend our choices don't matter

We couldn't make anything happen, because they bought the legislators and such necessary laws would never pass

Unless you think they could pass mandatory consumption laws, not eating meat would absolutely work. We're at just 2% vegans, and we've got Beyond and a lot of vegan options in soo many places, compared to just 10 years ago. Imagine just 10% vegans.

When I was in school people didn't even know what a vegetarian was, like my parents had to argue with the school to get them to belive it. Now McDonald's has a whole vegan menu (UK only, look it up online) things have changed so fast.

It's getting so much easier that I really think we're only going to see it continue to grow in numbers.

Exactly, if we went to defeat them we first need to destoy their source of power, if we stop buying bottled drinks then they'll be so tied up trying to pay rent on their factories they won't be able to afford the legislators. This is why they're scared of us collectively taking personal responsibility

I agree that not everyone can go 0%, but the vast, vast majority can. Especially if we're talking about people with access and time to chat on some internet platform, aka everyone reading this.

Not every man can stand up for womens rights either. For example, his sexist boss might constantly make sexist jokes about his coworkers. He needs the job, though. He can't afford to do the right thing. Do you think, therefore, it's a good thing to ALWAYS BRING THIS HYPOTHETICAL UP, whenever the topic is that men should stop supporting the patriarchy, feminism is good, etc.? If non-feminists were the ones always bringing up the exceptions, would you believe they actually cared?

Actually a non meat diet in many places is way more expensive and way less Filling than just eating meat or fish.

You can down vote me all you want, but consider bringing a argument against it if possible.

That's entirely down to economies of scale and cultural bias, you're talking about weird rural towns where the local shop almost caused a riot by accidentally stocking a type of bean no one was familiar with.

The cost to produce vegan food is well below that of meat equivalents, it takes a lot less resources at every stage of the process

The production cost is, yes. The price it's sold for absolutely isn't.

Because in some areas it's rare so anyone choosing it is forced to pay a premium, where it's more common it's the cheaper alternative because there's more competition.

Some? You mean basically the entire EU?

That's not even close to true, I've eaten cheap in every country in Western Europe, I can't speak for the rest but I know Slovakian and Polish vegans who post great looking meals on their social media.

it takes the same resources. like THE EXACT same resources. because we feed animals the parts of plants we can't or don't want to eat. any given acre of soy beans has an 85% chance it will all be used to make soy bean oil, and the industrial waste from that process is fed to livestock.

You can't seriously belive that, endless studies have been done and they all demonstrate it's incredibly clear which takes more resources

you have a study that shows that 85% of soybeans aren't crushed for oil? a study that shows that livestock aren't mostly fed crop seconds and silage and industrial waste? i'd like to see that.

https://ourworldindata.org/soy

that supports my case

No? You said 85% of soy goes to oil production. Only 11% is though. (Roughly 80% is produced for livestock)

you're not reading that page very closely. a soybean is only about 20% oil, so to get 17% in oil uses, you'll need to crush about 85% of all soybeans.

  • approximate percent of soybean that is oil = 20.00
  • percent of soy fed directly to animals = 7.00
  • percent of soy fed to dairy = 1.4
  • percent of soy fed to beef = 0.5
  • percent of soy fed to pets = 0.5
  • percent of soy fed to aquaculture = 5.6
  • percent of soy fed to pig = 20.2
  • percent of soy fed to poultry = 37.0
  • percent of soy that becomes human food = 20.00
  • percent of soy that becomes oil for food = 13.2
  • percent of soy that becomes soy milk = 2.1
  • percent of soy that becomes tofu = 2.6
  • percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc = 2.2
  • percent of soy that is fed to animals = 76.0
  • percent of soy that is used industrially = 4.00
  • percent of soy that becomes biodiesel = 2.8
  • percent of soy that becomes lubricants = .03
  • percent of soy that has other industrial uses = .07
  • percent of soy not fed directly to animals = 93.00
  • if all soy not fed directly to livestock were pressed for oil = (approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100) * percent of soy not fed directly to animals
  • soy eaten not as oil = percent of soy that becomes soy milk + percent of soy that becomes tofu + percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc
  • if all soy not eaten directly by livestock and not as non-oil food is pressed for oil = (percent of soy not fed directly to animals - soy eaten not as oil) * approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100

If we take 7% of all soy out because it's fed directly to animals, and another 6.9% is eaten, but not as oil, and 20% of each of the remaining beans are made of oil, we find 17.22% is the maximum amount of oil we could get if all the soy beans not fed to animals or eaten by people are pressed for oil.

It turns out that the chart shows 13.2% is oil for humans to eat, and 4.0% is used industrially (and these are all oil uses), totaling 17.2%,then basically all soy not eaten directly by animals or as various human foods is pressed for oil.

source https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/02/Global-soy-production-to-end-use.png

Where does it say, that it counts secondary uses? My understanding of the chart is, that 13.2% of soy is pressed for oil for human consumption and it's leftovers might also be fed to animals. But additionally to the other 76%

you're misunderstanding the chart. it literally says "end uses " on the chart. do you see where the soy fed to cattle is called "soy cake"? that's the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil.

  • approximate percent of soybean that is oil = 20.00
  • percent of soy fed directly to animals = 7.00
  • percent of soy fed to dairy = 1.4
  • percent of soy fed to beef = 0.5
  • percent of soy fed to pets = 0.5
  • percent of soy fed to aquaculture = 5.6
  • percent of soy fed to pig = 20.2
  • percent of soy fed to poultry = 37.0
  • percent of soy that becomes human food = 20.00
  • percent of soy that becomes oil for food = 13.2
  • percent of soy that becomes soy milk = 2.1
  • percent of soy that becomes tofu = 2.6
  • percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc = 2.2
  • percent of soy that is fed to animals = 76.0
  • percent of soy that is used industrially = 4.00
  • percent of soy that becomes biodiesel = 2.8
  • percent of soy that becomes lubricants = .03
  • percent of soy that has other industrial uses = .07
  • percent of soy not fed directly to animals = 93.00
  • if all soy not fed directly to livestock were pressed for oil = (approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100) * percent of soy not fed directly to animals
  • soy eaten not as oil = percent of soy that becomes soy milk + percent of soy that becomes tofu + percent of soy that becomes tempeh etc
  • if all soy not eaten directly by livestock and not as non-oil food is pressed for oil = (percent of soy not fed directly to animals - soy eaten not as oil) * approximate percent of soybean that is oil / 100

If we take 7% of all soy out because it's fed directly to animals, and another 6.9% is eaten, but not as oil, and 20% of each of the remaining beans are made of oil, we find 17.22% is the maximum amount of oil we could get if all the soy beans not fed to animals or eaten by people are pressed for oil.

It turns out that the chart shows 13.2% is oil for humans to eat, and 4.0% is used industrially (and these are all oil uses), totaling 17.2%,then basically all soy not eaten directly by animals or as various human foods is pressed for oil.

source https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/02/Global-soy-production-to-end-use.png

???

How on earth do people go to work if they don't drive

Walk, bike, scooter, train, tram, metro, trolley, bus. Plenty of countries can swing public transportation and plenty of people don't need to drive but still choose to.

Edit: It occurs to me now this person may have been sarcastic.

I drive among 12 different locations for work. Can't really give up the car.

What shitty job requires that?!

It's good. I drive from school to school seeing kids with disabilities.

It's dishonest to pick the work that specifically requires driving to complain about driving.

I wasn't complaining about driving - just saying that carless isn't always an option.

It's more dishonest to pretend such cases don't exist, it annoys me so much when people act like public transport is a magical solution to everything because I've relied on it a lot and there are so many issues to fix - for a start you have to address how dangerous it is, I don't like getting a night bus and I'm a scruffy male manual labourer - which cities would you want your 18yo daughter travelling across on bus and light rail at 11pm? Or you elderly mother?

Then there's the logistics, if I was going to visit eight people at home and had to get the bus between them then travel to and from the bus stop, waiting, changing bus and waiting again... Most of my day would be on the bus compared to a small percentage of it in a car if that was used instead. And yes you can say jobs like that shouldn't exist if you don't care about other people, just chuck the elderly, disabled and vulnerable people into a home and forget about them, who cares if women can't live normal lives let them stay at home if they want to be safe! All that matters is it's now cool to hate cars

Happily I don't live in your country, where, true, most cities seem to have been designed by car lobbyists.

All the arguments you imagined I'd use to rebuke you are, actually, part of the ethos and the public policy in your country, not mine, so you can stop projecting now.

I live in a European city with what's widely regarded as one of the best public transit systems in the West, most of the city was designed before cars even existed.

So no I'm not talking about America, are you trying to pretend that getting a bus in Barcelona, Rome, Paris or any other major European city is some magic fairy journey free of pick pockets, aggressive youths, creeps and weirdos? Because I've been on buses in all those cities and seen all those things regularly.

So it's their fault your argument didn't work as expected because their job requires driving?

Then you don't fall within the 'don't need to drive but choose to' segment. I don't fully agree with the root comment of this thread, there are definitely some jobs that require a personal vehicle, and yours sounds like one of them. But for most people who are commuting twice daily, more environmentally sound options can replace their personal car.

I walk from my bedroom to my office.

For the last time, putting your bed in conference room 6 did not make it your bedroom.

Also please remove your clothing from the filing cabinets.

Rude! That's not a 'filing cabinet', it's a chest of drawers.
And who is wearing my ball gown again?
ERIC! Take that gown off now you little bitch!
[walks off in a huff]

That's cool and all but I'm an industrial electrician. I have to drive to the shop every day, and travel all over the country. Can't exactly just walk over to a coal mine in bumfuck nowhere Kentucky

Just use the bus, duh.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm but just to put my city's transit into context, it'd be a 2 hour bus ride to get to the shop via bus from my house. And that's:

12 minute walk -> ride a bus -> 6 minute walk -> transfer and take a different bus -> 14 minute walk

Or a 22 minute drive

It was sarcasm.

But you could ride a bike! Which is really fun! In the winter, when there is heavy snow, or even on rainy summer days.

I don't get that some people just don't understand that it's sometimes just really inconvenient to not use a car, at least for some people. Please let them use cars without blaming them for doing so...? 🥺

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