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[Realmfighter]

So what your saying is, meat, along with many other thing would, if in shortage, cause the collapse of America?

America is an unbelievably terrible country.

[Grakelin]

You're a Canadian, Realm?


Me too!

So much vegetarianism in this thread. Going to destroy a lot of fertile land cultivating enough soy beans to feed us all if we go that route.

[Leafsnail]

Meat = bad for food production is correct if you're talking about intensive cattle ranching that involves feeding them food that humans would be able to eat.  On the other hand, raising, say, sheep on a piece of land which wouldn't be able to grow food... provides more food overall.

[Realmfighter]

On the other hand, raising, say, sheep on a piece of land which wouldn't be able to grow food... provides more food overall.

Is this even possible on a commercial scale?

[Leafsnail]

Well, you can try telling the farmers that do it on a commercial scale that it's impossible if you like.

[Duke 2.0]

 Will it work on a commercial scale to replace the beef market is the question. Doing successfully for the lamb market is fine and alright, but doing fine through being the size of the beef market? We'll need to see some work done before I'll believe it.

[Realmfighter]

Well, you can try telling the farmers that do it on a commercial scale that it's impossible if you like.

That was not a sarcastic question, more of a prompt for you to provide more information then your word.

[Leafsnail]

Oh, right, sorry.

I didn't mean that it should replace cattle farming, or that it's likely we'll be able to continue eating the same amount of meat in future.  Just that meat can help to produce more food overall.

I actually got it from this book, although most of the relevant stuff isn't there.  It's only really briefly touched on in that page:

The meat or dairy produce which results from cycling biomass in this fashion is ‘free’ in the sense that it has little or no environmental impact beyond that which is engendered by an ecosystem dedicated primarily to the production of vegetable food.

And which is then compared to the practise of feeding animals stuff that's edible to humans.

[Realmfighter]

Do you know how much food it does add?

Because thats pretty important.

[Leafsnail]

Not really.

Even if it's a fairly small amount, it's enough to defeat the principle "All meat is wasteful, vegetarianism is the way to go".

[Aqizzar]

I can't believed I overlooked this thread.  Man, I missed out on so many opportunities to describe Jewish Robots.

I always found it amusing looking at the differences between how industrial automation actually played out, versus the cartoonish imagination of automation from earlier eras.  Namely, that human workers would be replaced my humanoid robots, who did all the same task-motions that humans did.

Like the guy points out in the video, there are some jobs which "require" human labor, because you need fast snap decisions over minor but critical positioning changes.  Digging a hole, shelling a crab, stacking irregular freight, cutting hambones.  I guess we've reached the point where the processing power, mechanical precision, and three-dimensional measuring technologies can now imitate rote-human-skill, in a commercially feasible package.

I honestly don't know how to feel about that, because it knocks the legs out from under my woefully-naive but very necessary assumptions that there are tasks living people will always be better at than machines.  Damn.

[Realmfighter]

Can a robot write a book?

Or rather, can a robot write a good book?

Your right, at least for now.

[Aqizzar]

Your right, at least for now.

I meant in the realm of physical tasks.  Assembling parts, digging holes, building sheds, performing surgery, boning hams, and so forth.  Stuff that requires lots of minor, irregular motions and the ability to make judgments about differences in situations.  The list appears to be getting shorter all the time.

[Cheeetar]

Can a robot write a book?

Or rather, can a robot write a good book?

Your right, at least for now.

If robots can compose good music, I'm fairly sure that they'll be able to write a good book in the future.

[Realmfighter]

I'm fairly sure that in the future, robots will have powers of imaginative creation that would put even the greatest human to shame.

Hence the at least for now.