JubilantJaguar

Interesting. That certainly looks like a better world than the current one.

This model seems to be optimizing for a specific conception of human nutrition and wellbeing. Fair enough, that will definitely be an easier sell than veganism (if still extremely hard due to entrenched interests).

Personally (like many others here) I would prefer to go further still and optimize the model for biodiversity and animal wellbeing. 40% of current US meat consumption is still pretty high, seems it would be possible to cut that much more without conceding any ground on human nutrition. All of our nearest ape cousins are heavily (if not absolutely) vegan. That to me offers a pretty big clue about what's possible and even advisable.

In this alternative model, I suspect the bottom line for the animal biomass necessary for manure would be above the bottom line for optimal human nutrition, and lower than the figure necessary to produce a kilo of meat per person per week. Especially if it involves lots of egg-laying manure-producing chickens instead of large grazing ruminants. Such a model would require less land still. And if there's one thing even better for the environment than a best-practices agroecological farm with well-paid cooperative workers, it's no farm at all and a forest in its place.

Firstly, my general approach to this problem is to worry about it later, because obviously it's not a problem at all in a world of 8 billion humans all wanting to eat meat every day.

But, since you seem to know what you're talking about, what do you think would be the minimal amount of animals and land required to feed those 8 billion organically? Assumptions:

• animal manure is absolutely required in the absence of synthetic fertilizer (if true, I did not know this, I assumed that a forest could renew itself without the help of fauna)
• all 8 billion are willing in theory to go vegan

A rough picture of what that would look like? Lots of cereals and legumes and so on, plus a couple of chickens per hectare?

Agreed. Great idea.

Tangential, but I wish people would call it what it has always been called and what the locals still call it: Saigon. Instead of this Orwellian rebranding in honor of an autocrat.

Anyway: I've been there and can confirm that it has no shortage of extremely tasty vegan eating options.

Yes I've seen this factoid too, but I struggle to see how it could be true. We're comparing theoretically non-disposable kit from individual boats with the output of a large number of massive rivers in countries with populations of hundreds of millions (in particular Indonesia and Philippines) and a terrible habit of dumping trash in waterways. The amount reaching the ocean must by definition be huge.

Of course, the main problem with discarded fishing nets is not that they are plastic but that they destroy the ecosystem by design. Maybe the two harms have been conflated.

The sad reality is that most people don't care enough about the environment or animals to change their eating decision on the basis of those things alone. Yes, the selfishness and apathy pisses me off too, but we just have to accept it.

Three things will move them: taste, price, and healthiness. Hence the importance of this pivot.

One of the problems that’s literally never mentioned is that growing produce for humans can either depend on artificial fertilizers from fossil fuels or natural fertilizer from animals. Less animal production for meat, while a very good idea on so many levels, presents a generalized fertility problem.

This is the "manure argument", and it is mentioned, typically by the Big Meat lobby.

While the argument has merit in principle, it neglects the issue of scale. The amount of manure produced by a meat industry of a scale needed to feed billions of omnivorous humans is massively excessive to any possible needs in terms of crop fertilizer. The vast majority of that sh*t ends up in the environment, completely untreated. So, not only does it function as a pathogen that leads to overuse of antibiotics and thus pandemics, it also "fertilizes" rivers and groundwater with nitrate pollution that kills off everything that was there already.

The issue is not just about distribution, it is about type.

The problem is that everyone seems to have a different workflow. I've used AntennaPod every day for years and I have a bunch of problems with it that are all different from yours! I've also got a couple of others fixed and features added by lobbying for them on the issue tracker BTW.

I suspect there are better commercial options out there

Not so sure, I've tried a bunch. Used Doggcatcher for years: not as advanced. Also PocketCasts for years at one point: this had better UX but when I tried it again recently I was underwhelmed and found it was missing things I wanted.

The main issue with the commercial clients is that they're all desperately trying to become platforms, with obligatory sign-in and data harvesting. Typically by using cloud sync as the bait.

But there's no massively powerful industry that is legally pushing drugs on kids. That's the difference.

Bear in mind that the denominator is plastic pollution. Most plastic waste does not directly pollute the environment. If it is not recycled then it goes to landfills or incineration. Not ideal, but at least the damage is contained. (The bulk of ocean plastic comes from the rivers of poor countries without proper waste management.)

The issue with tyre microplastics is that it's all but impossible to channel the waste. It's the same with synthetic fabric: just washing it creates pollution that's really hard to control.

A bit confusing. Presumably you mean "after giving an upvote". In other words, to disincentivize upvotes.

Sounds like exactly the opposite of what would encourage friendly civil discourse: disincentivizing downvotes.

Slashdot got this right decades ago. No upvotes, no downvotes, just tags. Such as "informative", "insightful", "funny", and a couple of more negative ones like (IIRC) "provocative" or "controversial", which at least force you to say why you're promoting or hating on someone's good-faith contribution. But apparently that was all just too complex for the simpletons we really are.

So the answer to the 27-step question is Yes. Alas. Still nowhere near as easy as installing Linux on an Intel laptop. Which of course is already way too hard for most folks.

Still, well done for doing it.

U: downvoting facts does not make them go away. This was not a personal attack. I want this solution to to be more viable than it is, that is all.