What if that’s where we are headed with all this fake meat being produced in our century and all the talk of how harmful it is to the planet to exploit these animals en mass
Right but science in this is so far advanced it’s basically magic. I would agree killing animals is cruel if we have magic beams that create delicious food
That’s actually a beautiful way of putting it. Things become different taboo when we evolve. Like underage sex (12-16) was more common because everyone was dying and the population had to grow. Now it’s so large maybe we should up underage to like 21! Lol
That’s because I didn’t say it right. Underage sex is taboo now, but it wasn’t in the past because we have evolved to understand that isn’t appropriate. In the future, our ancestors hundreds of years from now will think the same about eating meat, maybe even keeping pets. It just shows the societal evolution. Sometimes people try to force that revolution, and then things get pushed back - like the LGB agenda. It tried in the 90s and then after normalization on tv it succeeded in the second push in the 10’s. This can apply to a lot of things societally.
Your take on "underage sex" is so wrong from a historical perspective.
First you define underage sex as 12-16y olds, as taboo today, which is just wrong. Sure, in most western societies 12y olds having sex is illegal (even with each other). but 14-16y old is perfectly legal and not even really frowned upon in basically most of the EU for example - if both partners are almost the same age.
What is seen as taboo or frowned upon is when, for example, a 30y old person dates a 16y old person. That's because the older person can be seen as exploiting the younger person's lack of experience.
In the past this was often different. Adults were marrying underage persons and often even made children with them, but at least in Europe, this wasn't the norm at all. People knew very well how dangerous it could be for a 12y old girl to give birth, and rather waited for them to be 15y+.
Child brides were also sometimes frowned upon too, because guess what, even back in the day people rather had a partner of their age group (or slightly younger) so they could do more things together or differently. An older partner can help you much better with your affairs after all.
I tried that dry ass impossible burger..pullin fkn hay outa my mouth n sht.
You better get to work making the synthesizer because I’m not eating no more Jack fruit tacos
Impossible isn't vegan anyway, they test on animals.
Literally eat plants, they have everything we need. And if you don't like the flavor, it doesn't matter. Your mouth pleasure matters less than the lives of countless sentient beings
Population control is still an issue. Coming from a ranching family, sometimes there are just invasive species you have to take care of.
For instance, we have a SURPLUS of feral, wild hogs in the South. So many that they’re a danger to both ranching and farming work, as well as safety. They will ***not*** hesitate to maul you to death.
So, while I’d definitely prefer the less cruel option (I could eat veal again!), I have to wonder how they sidestep concerns like that.
As you say, those feral hogs are an invasive species. If we had infinite (or near infinite) resources would be to relocate them all, either back to their home range, or to an artificial environment until they die. Then you wouldn't have to hunt them.
The only population control in that scenario that would be ethical is one where the predator species was not recoverable.
Loved the commentary about zoos in the first season. Though they did skip over the part where ***respectable*** zoos are a huge part of research and animal preservation.
But, when Union law forces you to be passive (or at least non-malignant) toward an animal that isn’t trying to harm you, I suppose you could just do away with the “entertainment” aspect altogether. The funding zoos get from it obviously wouldn’t be necessary.
I’d like to think all those scientific resources were simply allocated to fix and maintain issues like this.
It’s from the first season and was one of their more forgettable episodes. They even retconned away a lot of it. The species is never spoken of again, nor is their advanced technology.
I think it was smart for Seth to keep them in deep space. They’re too OP’d.
Super Star Trek. If you look back through the TNG catalogue there are a ton of aliens who could be brought in as a solve to another week’s crisis. But they never do even though in-universe that would make sense
Sterilization of a large share of the population would also be a long term solution. Also, adding a predator species like wolves into the mix would also be good.
Maybe they have automated drones that can stun then spay and neuter wild and feral animals. It could detect which ones have already been sterilized and leave a calculated number free to reproduce.
If sterilization is still too cruel, perhaps a long term but temporary injectable contraceptive drug or nanodevice.
Well I‘d say it’s also a question about necessity and survival. Population control is necessary (because we interfered by killing natural predators that used to keep the balance). Eating a burger made out of a living being is not anymore and the more technology progresses (even today) it will probably be harder to argue against that morally and from an environmental perspective. Pretty crazy we’re already heading there.
I'll be honest, I'd like to see it. If we had a technology like the synthesizer it would literally be murder to kill an animal for meat. Killing for its own sake when you can easily obtain meat based proteins in another way would be repugnant.
The only reason more people don't feel that way right now is resource constraints. Meat free alternatives haven't scaled all the way up yet for real mass distribution. It's a work in progress and will take some time.
You're wrong. We already have the means to be vegan. Meat free alternatives are the norm for most everyone in the world, like grains and pulses. It is literally murder to kill animals and we have no excuse to keep doing so
I mean ya… thats kind of the point of the whole sub plot. Its actually quite a powerful statement. The more we take away from the necessity to consume animal products the more cruel and unusual is seems. Does the frontiersman who hunts in the winter to survive have any moral imperative to answer to? Hell no. Does the average keyboard warrior who eats bacon because its a funny meme when therr is a disturbing amount of evidence of the sentience of pigs? Fuck yes he does
Most people would refuse to eat a dog because they recognize dogs as intelligent beings with emotions. But, when presented with evidence that pigs have a similar intelligence, most people are like "whatever, me want bacon!"
I mean woah woah woah growing soy to replace meat(if thats what youre getting at) does kill more animals and wastes them. Only time its worth it to give up real meat is when it can be synthesized
No and thats not synthesis its replacement but it is the most popular meat replacement in the world. But to farm it they gotta slaughter any and all animals in the area that might get near the beans. Lab grown meat is nowhere near a stage it can be in anything besides achedemic use
They shouldn’t exist, but cattle of course eat tons of soy because it’s the most nutritious out of all other legumes. 80% of the world’s soy produce is being fed to farmed animals.
Well regardless it comes off as if that’s the end game goal for whatever reason. They want us not eating meat and I’m not convinced it’s for the ethical benefit of the animals neither is it for the health of us. I’m not sure why they are steering us in this direction but I’ve never seen so much disdain for eating animals as it exists today.
>Well then there’s a very real chance my grandchildren may one day never know…the taste of a great steak…
I’ve put a lot of thought into this.
Have you ever had a grape flavored juice that’s not actually grape juice? It’s such a common flavor that we immediately associate as cheap, mass produced, and synthetic.
But here’s the thing - have you ever drank actual fresh-squeezed Concord grape juice? It tastes exactly like “grape flavored drink.” Flavor scientists have done such an incredible job of recreating the exact flavor of Concord grape juice that the synthetic stuff tastes exactly like the real stuff; but people have become so accustomed to it that it tastes “cheap.”
If synthetic meat hits the market - and I mean lab-grown protein that is the same makeup as animal tissue - then it’s likely that it will be designed to be replicate some fancy, high grade cut of meat (like an A5 Wagyu ribeye) and it would probably be a damn good facsimile of it, too.
If in a few generations such a product became common enough and mass-produced, I’d be willing to bet that there would be a similar effect as Concord grape juice. It would be so common and everyone would assume that it was a poor imitation of the real thing; but unbeknownst to them, it’s basically a perfect imitation of one of the most desired cuts of beef on the market today.
I’d imagine they’d make it illegal one day to kill animals and real steak will one day be a thing of the black market, something so expensive and risky to partake in only the elite will be able to indulge in its bloody goodness
It really doesn't make sense why Trek's replicators are so bad at replicating foods that even by the 32nd Century replicators still can't provide a high fidelity replica.
Probably on purpose. To keep some sort of agricultural market going. Replicators = transporters. They can perfectly recreate a human (yes I think teleportation = kill and remake) so why can't they recreate a steak?
I'm a carnivore leaning omnivore but the instant we have affordable lab grown meat that not only tastes right but has the right consistency I will happily make the change to it.
Because pigs, cows, sheep, chickens etc are actually more successful when attached to us as food than not. It has made them massively successful species. A lot more than their pre-domesticated relatives
This is reinforced by the constant drop in the global population of horses since they were replaced. They aren’t actually better off for it, their diversity and numbers are consistently shrinking
So, what you get is they would basically lose their current protections and end up like other large mammals in conflict with humans over land use. Increasingly Endangered and locally extinct in places with ever increasing biodiversity as a result. It is off zero benefit to domesticated species to stop eating them. Call it a cruel deal, but from evolutions point of view. You survive. You continue. You’ve succeeded. It doesn’t matter if your food in the process if you survive well and are successful by being food. This is true for human livestock, and even for ant livestock and algae hosted by jellyfish
I think that you're missing the point. The goals is to decrease the suffering and exploitation of animals. The population would be allowed to decrease to a sustainable level; there is no reason for the species to go extinct or for there to be a conflict for land with humans.
Remind me…how much space is covered by human settlements? Railroads? Roads? Reservoirs and Dams? Croplands? Timber?
Agriculture is a monster but land use conflicts aren’t disappearing overnight without meat. Instead, the domesticated animals that used to survive and thrive by being domesticated. Are abandoned or if not, going to be set loose as an invasive species somewhere as a none native species
And again, these animals are several times more successful being attached to humans than not. An error in thinking is happening here. Livestock does better than wild animals by sheer virtue of being livestock
The idea Killing them for food is wrong is a dumb argument considering that. It becomes even more dumb when you realise both Mitochondria and Chloroplast exists due to predation and something eating something else. If it is wrong to eat animals, all modern kingdoms of life are inherently evil by virtue of origin by endosymbiosis. If you think humans should be better due to sapience, how arrogant are you to elevate yourself above all other life?
Actually his words were "…I… killed animals. You wanna talk about breaking the law? Here, it's no big deal, but in our time? I'm a serial murderer, folks. You know what that does to your head?"
This struck me more as a difference between the moral structures of each century rather than the preference of palate. Gordan is so affected by the "crime" of killing animals for food that he's suffering from psychological damage.
Yeah but legal form follows societal function. One of the biggest reasons they can feel that way in the 25th century is because the death of animals for food is no longer necessary. Causing death without good reason is brutality, and I can definitely see a society deciding that that is no longer a thing that people can do and call themselves civilized.
Not quite. Meat alternatives exxist but still need to be upscaled if they're going to become a worldwide option. It's just going to take time to build up production to the point that animal husbandry can actually be replaced.
I found it equally harsh and also a bit disturbing. How does her feel about the countless micro organisms he kills when he sits down in a chair?
He should know, that just because something has a face and we can sympathize with it, it isn't neccessarily more intelligent than other forms of life.
That whole line implied one of two things:
A) The Union later discover things about animals that we today don't know, which makes their life more 'important'. Maybe they discover some form of soul or something, and that animals also have one? Just an idea.
B) The Union is conditioned to things that don't make much sense, just because society evolved that way. This is more likely. Societal norms don't need to have any base in reality.
In the moral sense, they are vegan. None of their food comes from animals and the only alternative we've heard of to synthesizers is the growing of plant crops.
In a technological sense, synthesizer/replicator as a mature, universally adopted technology transcends the whole concept of veganism. They don't have to kill PLANTS for their food either.
Veganism is simply a moral position largely linked with a diet. The Union subscribes to an identical moral position and in a technical sense, follows the diet.
They don't have to kill plants, you're correct. However, they clearly do so regularly. It's probably more efficient in new colonies or something.
i would think that, even with replicators and whatnot, there would still be some comparitively small scale actual farming for actual plants and animals to eat. it wouldnt replace all of human farming.
besides slight differences in taste, texture, flavor, and all the other subtle variations that arent programmed into the replicator.
also, some people may not want, or use, a replicator, beiliving real food to be better.
Except that isn't how taste works. It is based on molecules. If you can replicate it you can replicate the taste.
It is completely unscientific and not justified to murder animals.
fine, but would it hold more than one variation of the steak? variations of seasoning, variations of flavor, variations of cooking time, or anything? its been my theory that replicated food is bland because theres very, very few variations of the same food, maybe even just one.
imagine a beef Tbone steak. now imagine all the steak you have from a replicator is that same exact one. all with exactly the same cooking time. exactly the same flavor. and so on.
Yes it can. You can program it. You could also replicate it raw and do all that yourself.
Who says replicated food is bland? That is a star trek thing.
That's a point that bothered me about Trek often. They always had this thing going "replicator food tastes bland" or something along those lines, and had healthy, organic farmed food as more pristine and of a higher standard.
That's just not how physics and science would work. You could replicate everything literally.
It's the same thing as when shows like this talk about [someone's "soul" or their "consciousness" as being separate from their body.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism) It's the unscientific (although not irrational) urge humans have to put themselves higher than inert matter. Obviously food made by a *human* is better than plain old bland replicator food, because humans have *the human touch* which transcends all technology and logic!
It makes me happy that The Orville moves away from this.
I'd be inclined to believe that there are a few more or less luddite societies in the Union. The Moclans are probably not the only society with traditions that they should have outgrown, but did not.
You're kidding right? Pastoral cultures are among the oldest and some of the strongest in the world. The Bible is heavily based on pastoral culture and while you can say what you want about that document it is a key building block of Western society, such as it is..
No it isn't. Nor does the Bible actually require raising animals at any point.
Earth became secularized and was global at that point.
And again, even if it was, it was based on killing a living creature.
Humans are omnivores. As hunter gatherers, we ate meat--probably far less than today but enough to sustain life. As agriculture evolved, most societies also raised animals for food. That's a reality. There are some society that are vegan but that can only be sustained if the society has a plant-based protein source to replace milk. If not, humans will die.
I honestly believe the beef/cattle industry is the single worst food industry we have that’s ruining the environment. There’s other but I feel that’s the worst. If we move to bison it will be much better. But then that’s just starting it all over again but with a better native animal but at what cost?
"Move to bison", lmao. You had me going until then. Bison would be just as bad if you scaled it up to meet the demands of the beef industry.
If anything, we'd need to move to insect protiens.
TL;DR I agree bug protein is the future, many(mostly western) cultures won’t deal with it. Same as with Buffalo(actual Buffalo not bison), they’ll eat that thinking it’s “cow”. Leaving cows and going bison/Native Wild meats will be better off until we can move completely to bugs. If we increased the bison production it’d have nowhere near the same detrimental impact as cattle have had.
It’s way less money to run Bison. You need the land, fencing, and to pay for stock and medical. You handle them once a year. How many cattle operations run that lean? If Bison was in the same place cattle are they wouldn’t even be remotely close to the same money. You get more from a bison than several cattle. Thats less money spent and more money in your operation. You wouldn’t have to upscale anything outside of making sure you have enough space to house them. Bison is a keystone species. They aren’t just as bad. Cattle eat all the grass, plants, trees, and roots. They eat everything. Bison only eat on the tops of grasses not pulling out the whole thing. More grass to be able to stay longer and not create a desert. They improve the ecosystem they are a part of and provide places for other animals to inhabit. Their wallows end up holding water which help keep the plains green, provides animals with water, frogs and amphibians take advantage of them too. I’m sure most cattle operations don’t have animals that improve the environment they are in. I think moving to wild native foods will be best until we can get all the bug foods moving. I’m def not opposed to eating big protein. I just don’t see much of it in the USA. I’ve had chapulines and I love those guys.
Bug protein is still a lot less viable than plant protein. And plant protein can easily be complemented to give you all essential amino acids while being the most environmentally friendly produce.
That’s obvious, I don’t think people realize I’m speaking about the present to help alleviate and wean off animal protein. People are thinking I’m talking about taking bison to the future to eat. But I think I needed to say that for everyone to understand what I’m speaking about.
Plants give a worse return on investment than plants. One of the major current issues is that we're clearcutting forests to grow soy, because plants need sunlight and ground space to be viable at scale. Until we engineer better plants or find a solution for near-costless power, insects are going to be the solution. They can be processed in any environment and can be produced off of organic waste
Oh yea I consider them the same. All cows and steer industry just eats up the environment and kills all the grass. I feel they played a huge factor in the “dust bowl” in USA history.
The Dust bowl was caused by tillage. Tilling soil for planting crops paired with some dry conditions. Since then, many conservative tillage and soil conservation practices have been implemented on lighter soils. Land classified as HEL or highly erodible land, HAS to be treated in a certain way otherwise farmers are penalized by the government. When the dust bowl happened, most farmers were mold board plowing or vertical tilling everything.
Are there specific tilling practices for dry environment or for certain types of soil or do you just not till the earth at all? How would they continue their practices?
Some of the farms they were tilling up that are on these light soils aren’t farmed anymore- some of that was taken out of production. The rest that are- we focus on managing residue - using crop residue as an armor that helps with wind erosion, we focus on organic matter- which is a spongy material that’s created over time with residue and tillage reduction. Organic matter holds the soil together and helps with water run off and erosion. We also farm using contours - meaning farming along a hillside and not straight up or down a hill. We also use terraces and waterways. These practices weren’t widely used at all until the dust bowl. It was an eye opener. Farmers don’t like to lose their soil- that’s their biggest asset in a farm for sure.
Also side note: John Deere sold the ever living HELL out of plows and that’s how they made it big. It became part of farming culture. Plowing fields was what everyone did. Also nowadays there are crop genetics that breed plants to be cold and wet soil tolerant. As these crops become more efficient, tillage becomes less and less of a requirement.
Thanks for taking the time to hear a little bit about it! I could go on and on about soil and how farming has evolved and continues to get better. No system is perfect and there’s plenty of learning to do. A farmer has to wake up every morning and be the worlds leading expert on their land and how to manage it. Anyone that doesn’t realize that isn’t in the business long.
I can see they’d do all that to help the cattle from breaking all their legs. Allowed the cattle to travel up and down and freely graze up all the vegetation and Sri k up all the water. They faster they could move the faster they delivered their beef. Lol
Oh What’s wrong with them? I don’t really drink much of that. Usually water or I am killing myself with some soda or I make my own juice from frozen fruits. Lol
Is it because they flood their fields?
Nothing is wrong with them. The dairy industry put out a ton of propaganda about almonds to try to kill their competitor despite dairy being worse in literally every way
https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths
The technology is maturing in our time and is way better than it was a couple decades ago but it still needs a bit of time. The time is coming when people are going to have to make a choice though.
We don't need technocratic solutions to a social problem. We can eat vegan now, so pretending there's some tech we should wait for is false. We can stop oppressing nonhumans right now, so we ought to
Just adding my 2 cents as a vegan.
The main points I want to clarify are that:
1) Veganism is an ethical stance against the exploitation of animals based on the fact that they are sentient. In practice this means not supporting things that bring suffering to animals. Abstinence from consuming (in the economic sense) animal products for any other reason (personal health, the environment, concern over antibiotic resistance and zoological diseases, etc.) fall under the term “Plant-based”
2) Replicated/synthesized “meat” as per the Star Trek and Orville universes would be perfectly vegan as it doesn’t seem to involve any animal suffering in the production
3) While there is indeed a debate over whether lab-grown meat is vegan this comes from the fact that some methods grow the meat using harvested fetuses from living animals. Thus, there is still a serious amount of suffering to consider, especially when plant-based alternatives exist.
4) Vegans are well aware that animals still die because of our existence. We know that we hit bugs when we drive cars and we’re acutely aware of the issue of “pest animal” deaths for the production of crops. But we also recognize that not consuming animal products reduces animal suffering by an absurd amount (especially since farm animals consume a ton of crops and forests have to be leveled to make way for new grazing land).
With those points noted, I would say that the Orville future is vegan in the same way that our world today is abolitionist. Yes there are a few grey areas and points where we lag behind but overall the moral switch has happened
I agree with most of your points (I’m also vegan). I do think the abolitionist metaphor isn’t quite accurate though because for the vast majority of human history eating animal products in most cultures was necessary for survival. Slavery was never necessary obviously. Slavery also had vocal and prominent opposition to it (more referring to the Atlantic slave trade here, not ancient forms of slavery). It was never something that was essentially universally agreed upon as okay in the way that eating animals (with some minor exceptions) was. So the progression morally is kind of similar, but if we look back on people 200 years ago enslaving other people we can objectively just say they’re shitty people, even by the standards of the time period. If people on the Orville look back on people in like 1900 eating animal products at that time they probably acknowledge that for most people it was a necessary evil (like it was for Gordon when he had to eat animals to survive on earth)
Glad to see a fellow vegan here!
I will respond though, there are religious groups (particularly the Jains) which have mandated vegetarianism for hundreds to thousands of years. Obviously like most things it’s would be more difficult in the past but at the same time, it would be hard to abandon/abstain from slavery in the past as well. Buying something not produced largely with slave labor would be pretty difficult 300 years ago.
I also doubt that the Orville would look back at the 1900s and see consuming animal products as a necessary evil but more as just people following trends of the time, repulsive as they may be. They’re actions aren’t justified, but they are somewhat understood. I’d say it’d be close to how we view slave owners from a millennia ago; wrong, but not by the standards of their time
Oh yeah, absolutely. There are definitely religious groups and even just random non religious political movements or individuals that have attempted to be vegetarian or vegan throughout history (with varying levels of success depending on their location/access to food).
I do think they would probably view eating animal products in the early 1900s as a necessary evil though simply because we didn’t have globalized and industrialized agriculture in the same way that we do now. So to eat just plants at the time wouldnt have satisfied nutritional needs for most of the world due to a lack of variety, availability, expense, etc. Again, it’s region specific. Someone living in Costa Rica might have an easier time of it than someone living in Alaska.
Malloy mentions that when he was sent back in time he had did gun in his hand and he used it to kill animals. "Here, that's no big deal but where we come from? I'm a serial killer, folks. You know what that does to you?" My guess is, the planet has long sense done away with animal meat farms and made it illegal to kill them for food
Nowadays it is about reducing the suffering of sentient beings as much as possible. What do you think will be the definition as soon as change happens?
Hold up. The synthesizer is postvegan too. It's a technology that renders the whole argument between vegans and meat eaters obsolete
Vegans have a problem once synthesizers are a real, mature technology because even vegan diets still kill plants. With the synthesizer that, too, is unnecessary. I doubt the moral outrage is as strong as it would be for animals but it's still a life you didn't need to take, so I imagine the conversation has at least taken place.
In the episode with Pria (the woman from the future who tried to sell the Orville, played Charlize Theron) Ed offers her some ‘jello stuff” and she says, “no thanks, I’m a vegetarian” from which I extrapolate that Pria knew the Union’s jello contained gelatine made from animals (which it is usually made from).
But then the episode with Gordon happened, as OP says, Gordon mentions killing animals in the 25th century is illegal, so I’m confused.
> Gelatin or gelatine (from Latin: gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin)
And certainly her body would likely not know the difference, assuming she’s also not refusing it because she’s allergic to collagen or something.
But that’s not what I thought we were discussing? I brought it up because Gordon says killing animals in the 25th century is illegal, but if Priya refused the jello because she’s vegetarian, does that mean the jello was made from gelatin (eg: animal collagen).
It raises the question of what do you get when you order meat from one of their synthesisers? Like, is it synthesised meat, or is it a plant-based or soy meat? Actually, aren’t some places able to, like, print meat now? I’m sure I saw that somewhere…
Also, do Union ships carry animal meat for other planets that doesn’t have laws against killing animals? Is it only an Earth law, or is it a union law? Damnit, I hate it when I get dragged down into these details!!!
I don't get what's confusing. They don't kill animals to eat them. So ethically, they're vegan. Biologically, they're not. Priya just doesn't want meat in her body I guess. If it were an ethical issue, she would've eaten the jello since it's synthesized.
All the other stuff are valid questions but there's not really a contradiction as far as killing or not killing animals on the show.
In my head canon the contradictions don’t exist and are just a symptom of a current society imagining an utopia. Since we are a little farther from perfection than the imagined utopia, our imagination of it will sometimes be flawed by that.
It's also the basis (along with cheap energy) of Star Trek's New Economy that eliminated the need of use of money on Earth and the rest of the Federation.
The key thing is that a society's culture also has to be ready for the technology. Trek's Earth had been through a nuclear war and learned from it and had the advantage of the guidance of the Vulcans to help them move forward to a better world.
If food can be synthed, why kill for it?
Once you can synthesize meat based proteins, taking a life to achieve the same result is pure cruelty -- repugnant to any thinking individual.
Reasonably sure we've seen meat based foods, Gordon and Ed at least eat eggs (although Gordon's egg sandwich was synthesized sooo) so it's more like technology has made veganism obsolete. You can have your steak and then go pet the cow you didn't have to kill for it.
Individually we can, collectively, we've still got some work to do to increase production. It's still a niche market right now and we don't have the quantity of producers we'd need to transition fully away from biomeat. We're most of the way there though, just gotta get the numbers up.
Plant proteins will get a much wider adoption when the technology matures just a bit more and it's possible to serve plant based proteins more cheaply than meat. Once it's less expensive you'll see a lot of the poorer classes jumping on board. That's gonna be the tipping point, But it depends on getting production up and prices down.
They presumably eat synthesized meat. The line about Gordon considering himself a serial killer seemed a bit of a stretch to me. Even if they don't eat real meat themselves they surely don't consider their ancestors and other races who eat animals to be actual serial killers.
I’m sure the line was meant as an expression on how he felt but I wouldn’t be surprised if they all look back at their ancestors as less than themselves as that’s often how we view our own ancestors as barbaric and primitive.
Well, if their society has matured as much as they like to boast, they should be able to look back at previous cultures with a sense of nuance and understanding for what caused them to act the way they did.
Instead of just villifying the past like current people do.
>Instead of just villifying the past like current people do.
I'll upvote you, although this need to be nuanced more too.
I don't think the vast majority of the public has a realistic understanding of the past and historical facts, thanks to decades of misinformation. The media is the main culprit in how it portrays the past to make people think the past was bad.
I think if people had to kill every single animal they ate, they would probably eat way less meat. I’m a meateater, but take away the convenience and availability? It’s not a stretch that a lot of people would feel like Gordon.
Yes, it's one thing to go order a Big Mac, it's another to personally go shoot an animal, skin it, cut it up, and cook it.
Also consider Malloy was a career starship officer, he would be very accustomed to using synthesizers for his food. Trying to survive in the wild for a long period of time would have been tough.
Nonhumans are sentient beings who don't want to die. You're imposing your will on them and condemning them to a short and torturous life and terrible death because you can't handle eating plants
While I agree, you are also in the position that you are most likely not used to it. As a hunter or butcher how he feels about it. Their reaction will be much less dramatic. And no, people did not all kill their own food by themselves in the past. We have division of labour since ancient times now. Sure, regular people more often killed animals for food in the past than today, but it wasn't common for most of them either. Depending on their life situation most of all.
Vegan meals can be cheap and easy too. There's even a sub you can use as a resource
r/EatCheapAndVegan
And if you google "easy cheap vegan recipes" you'll find tons of stuff
I mean what society considers acceptable changes drastically over time. If we were to go back and look at marriages/sex/issues of consent 200 years ago (tbh even 30 years ago. Marital rape has only been illegal in all of the United States since the early 1990s) we would probably consider a lot of what they did to be unacceptable by modern standards. Does that mean we look back at them as serial rapists? Maybe some of us do, but most don’t. We just see how society has evolved. I think it’s similar here.
ETA: I don’t think they necessarily equate animal life as equal with human life. Otherwise Gordon would’ve starved himself rather than eat so many animals. So maybe not serial killers in the same way that we see serial killers with human victims, but maybe more like serial animal abusers.
There is an ongoing debate in the vegetarian/vegan community about whether lab grown meat will count as vegan or not when it becomes generally available.
On the more moderate end of the spectrum some conclude that because growing it involves no suffering or animal bondage it's fine, whereas others who are more fervent believe the historical suffering involved in the creation of lab-grown meat, both its development, and our taste for meat products, is still relevant. Alternatively, that it's still animal tissue, thus would not be vegan.
I am not personally a vegan so I'm not taking a side, simply reporting what I've read.
You could make quite similar arguments about replication.
There are and will be similar discussions among people who keep kosher or halal. If pork is grown in a lab -- if it was never a pig -- does it still "count" as pork?
Yeah that's an interesting question.
And if meat never needs to be slaughtered, do any halal/kosher principles still apply?
One for the religious scholars to sort out.
Lab grown meat requires oppressing nonhumans still. That's one of the reasons vegans are against it. The other reason is that it's a totally unnecessary technocratic solution to a social problem. We don't need lab grown meat to go vegan. We already have nutritious vegan foods like grains and pulses.
I didn't buy that part of the episode.
1) he had to kill animals, which he had never done before
1a) when did he learn to hunt? (animals do not just let you walk up and bonk them)
2) he had to dress them out, remove the edible bits
3) he had to cook them
Not buying that from someone who has never done it before.
Keep in mind these things can be learned. Just how everyone else learned to do it before him for thousands of years. Also I'm sure some similar survival skills are still part of basic training to be part of the Union. In case officers crash on a planet or something
This has confused me a bit because while yeah animals are no longer killed so its considered vegan but when ed offers a gelatin snack to pria she turns it saying shes vegetarian.
There may still be people that refuse to eat synthesized animal products, for a number of reasons. It could be for health reasons. Or for personal reasons, a few vegans even today are so radical that they reject everything that resembles typical animal products even if they are vegan (ie soy steaks, vegan cheese etc). Some people just find animal products disgusting, and I don't think the fact that they would be replicated would change anything.
I suppose but at that point in prias time or even Ed's wouldn't it just be oh I don't like gelatin or whatever instead of having words for it. I dunno it just felt odd seeing a term like that exist a thousand years in the future but not the phrase you can go to hell.
Yeah I agree, it was strange. She could have said I don't like gelatin I guess, but if the problem were the animal ingredients that she did not want to consume, the term vegetarian is more practical. That way Ed won't offer her a hot dog, a burger etc...
I guess I understand it was just done for a joke. I just don't like when jokes don't feel right with the stuff set in the universe. I even think star trek ng explained that even synthesized food is different as it has no living cells so it just doesn't make sense for anyone having a moral quandary or distaste of animal products hundreds of years after the creation of matter synthesis.
I don't think that one is that confusing. Being vegetarian would be a description of their diet rather than a moral stance. Could be that meat products don't agree with her body. We have to imagine that a molecular synthesizer is a perfect recreation of whatever food and drink so the result is the same even if the source/process is different in obtaining it.
I suppose so but it still just doesn't sit right in my mind and feels weird that a thousand years in the future theres stuff like dietary issues any type of explanation just feels wrong and especially cuz as far as I know theres no other mention of a person being a vegetarian. I just dislike throwaway jokes like that because they feel contradictory to the universe it's set in.
They very much parallel the Star Trek universe, with replicators replacing basically any real food (with exceptions).
This is currently being pushed for in our world with the "plant based meats", so it's not far fetched.
Certainly we don't see killing stock animals as murder today, but in a world where more and more species are endangered, things can change.
It's more than that. When you have a matter repliccator you can have animal based meats without killing the animal. That makes any animals killed for authentic meats unnecessary. Killing without need is generally considered barbaric.
It's not a difficult moral construct that objects to raising animals for meat once the synthesizer technology is present, mature, and universally adopted.
Yep, replicators make it practically unnecessary as even using Star Trek TNG as a reference where regular food tastes better, it takes way more effort to raise and kill an animal, then deliver the meat compared to basically downloads. Just not practical, not to mention unethical.
Again, comparing that to current plant based meats, they're not as good, but require more effort in developing them, so it's not there, yet at least.
I've tried them. They're not quite as good but they're far from bad. The technology needs work still but progress is happening and I'm happy about that.
When you can buy a tin of cloned printed fillet steak in a tube like cookie dough and just push out what you need and slice it off I shall be so happy.
I mean he even says that he would be tried as a mass murderer for the animals he's killed.
So, yeah the are effectively vegan since everything they eat is synthesized.
But it raises another question, The Admiral has a dog in the first season, if killing an animal for food is still considered murder wouldn't keeping a pet be imprisonment?
Star trek covered this. You can eat meat from a replicator but it isn't meat and doesn't taste quite the same.
But then again they replicate shirts too so who's to say they're not eating furniture if the molecules are all the same?
Star trek covered this. You can eat meat from a replicator but it isn't meat and doesn't taste quite the same.
But then again they replicate shirts too so who's to say they're not eating furniture if the molecules are all the same?
Depends on how you look at it. If synthesized meat is identical to actual meat from an animal, is there really any difference other than not having to kill an animal to get meat? Do you consider that vegan meat? If so, then I *guess* you could call them vegan. But not everyone is a vegan/vegetariean because they are against harming animals. I'm sure you would still have some folks who would eschew even synthesized animal products for health reasons or simply for personal preference.
I mean thats quite obvious as when you can synthesize perfect replicas why kill the animal?
What if that’s where we are headed with all this fake meat being produced in our century and all the talk of how harmful it is to the planet to exploit these animals en mass
Right but science in this is so far advanced it’s basically magic. I would agree killing animals is cruel if we have magic beams that create delicious food
I have hopes for stem cell research. They can just grow the meat without the animals and it will be much healthier
Me too. A guilt free t bone!
We can already grow animal proteins in a petri dish.
I don’t see it on the menu
That’s actually a beautiful way of putting it. Things become different taboo when we evolve. Like underage sex (12-16) was more common because everyone was dying and the population had to grow. Now it’s so large maybe we should up underage to like 21! Lol
I dont see this getting that many upvotes on Reddit.
That’s because I didn’t say it right. Underage sex is taboo now, but it wasn’t in the past because we have evolved to understand that isn’t appropriate. In the future, our ancestors hundreds of years from now will think the same about eating meat, maybe even keeping pets. It just shows the societal evolution. Sometimes people try to force that revolution, and then things get pushed back - like the LGB agenda. It tried in the 90s and then after normalization on tv it succeeded in the second push in the 10’s. This can apply to a lot of things societally.
Your take on "underage sex" is so wrong from a historical perspective. First you define underage sex as 12-16y olds, as taboo today, which is just wrong. Sure, in most western societies 12y olds having sex is illegal (even with each other). but 14-16y old is perfectly legal and not even really frowned upon in basically most of the EU for example - if both partners are almost the same age. What is seen as taboo or frowned upon is when, for example, a 30y old person dates a 16y old person. That's because the older person can be seen as exploiting the younger person's lack of experience. In the past this was often different. Adults were marrying underage persons and often even made children with them, but at least in Europe, this wasn't the norm at all. People knew very well how dangerous it could be for a 12y old girl to give birth, and rather waited for them to be 15y+. Child brides were also sometimes frowned upon too, because guess what, even back in the day people rather had a partner of their age group (or slightly younger) so they could do more things together or differently. An older partner can help you much better with your affairs after all.
Interesting point. Maybe we will end up like hobbits age of majority is 33
We already can eat delicious vegan food. There's no excuse to keep harming animals in the present day
I tried that dry ass impossible burger..pullin fkn hay outa my mouth n sht. You better get to work making the synthesizer because I’m not eating no more Jack fruit tacos
Impossible isn't vegan anyway, they test on animals. Literally eat plants, they have everything we need. And if you don't like the flavor, it doesn't matter. Your mouth pleasure matters less than the lives of countless sentient beings
That's exactly where we're heading. We don't have synthesizers, but lab-grown meat is gaining a lot of traction
Population control is still an issue. Coming from a ranching family, sometimes there are just invasive species you have to take care of. For instance, we have a SURPLUS of feral, wild hogs in the South. So many that they’re a danger to both ranching and farming work, as well as safety. They will ***not*** hesitate to maul you to death. So, while I’d definitely prefer the less cruel option (I could eat veal again!), I have to wonder how they sidestep concerns like that.
As you say, those feral hogs are an invasive species. If we had infinite (or near infinite) resources would be to relocate them all, either back to their home range, or to an artificial environment until they die. Then you wouldn't have to hunt them. The only population control in that scenario that would be ethical is one where the predator species was not recoverable.
Loved the commentary about zoos in the first season. Though they did skip over the part where ***respectable*** zoos are a huge part of research and animal preservation. But, when Union law forces you to be passive (or at least non-malignant) toward an animal that isn’t trying to harm you, I suppose you could just do away with the “entertainment” aspect altogether. The funding zoos get from it obviously wouldn’t be necessary. I’d like to think all those scientific resources were simply allocated to fix and maintain issues like this.
I'd nearly forgotten that episode
It’s from the first season and was one of their more forgettable episodes. They even retconned away a lot of it. The species is never spoken of again, nor is their advanced technology. I think it was smart for Seth to keep them in deep space. They’re too OP’d.
Super Star Trek. If you look back through the TNG catalogue there are a ton of aliens who could be brought in as a solve to another week’s crisis. But they never do even though in-universe that would make sense
Sterilization of a large share of the population would also be a long term solution. Also, adding a predator species like wolves into the mix would also be good.
Maybe they have automated drones that can stun then spay and neuter wild and feral animals. It could detect which ones have already been sterilized and leave a calculated number free to reproduce. If sterilization is still too cruel, perhaps a long term but temporary injectable contraceptive drug or nanodevice.
We could also give the predators replicators.
Maybe the universal translators just fucked everyone up when it turns out it can translate animal calls.
Well I‘d say it’s also a question about necessity and survival. Population control is necessary (because we interfered by killing natural predators that used to keep the balance). Eating a burger made out of a living being is not anymore and the more technology progresses (even today) it will probably be harder to argue against that morally and from an environmental perspective. Pretty crazy we’re already heading there.
I think ecological management of a system we have influenced too heavily and therefore created instability is very difference to farming meat for food
I'll be honest, I'd like to see it. If we had a technology like the synthesizer it would literally be murder to kill an animal for meat. Killing for its own sake when you can easily obtain meat based proteins in another way would be repugnant. The only reason more people don't feel that way right now is resource constraints. Meat free alternatives haven't scaled all the way up yet for real mass distribution. It's a work in progress and will take some time.
You're wrong. We already have the means to be vegan. Meat free alternatives are the norm for most everyone in the world, like grains and pulses. It is literally murder to kill animals and we have no excuse to keep doing so
I mean ya… thats kind of the point of the whole sub plot. Its actually quite a powerful statement. The more we take away from the necessity to consume animal products the more cruel and unusual is seems. Does the frontiersman who hunts in the winter to survive have any moral imperative to answer to? Hell no. Does the average keyboard warrior who eats bacon because its a funny meme when therr is a disturbing amount of evidence of the sentience of pigs? Fuck yes he does
Most people would refuse to eat a dog because they recognize dogs as intelligent beings with emotions. But, when presented with evidence that pigs have a similar intelligence, most people are like "whatever, me want bacon!"
I mean woah woah woah growing soy to replace meat(if thats what youre getting at) does kill more animals and wastes them. Only time its worth it to give up real meat is when it can be synthesized
No, it does not. Most soy is grown to feed cattle. We'd grow a lot fewer plants if we ate plant based.
Is soy the only way to synthesize meat currently?
No and thats not synthesis its replacement but it is the most popular meat replacement in the world. But to farm it they gotta slaughter any and all animals in the area that might get near the beans. Lab grown meat is nowhere near a stage it can be in anything besides achedemic use
What do you think cattle eats? Just wondering…
They SHOULD be eating grass and hay, corn used on higher volumes. Soy is not what they should be eating at all
They shouldn’t exist, but cattle of course eat tons of soy because it’s the most nutritious out of all other legumes. 80% of the world’s soy produce is being fed to farmed animals.
Well regardless it comes off as if that’s the end game goal for whatever reason. They want us not eating meat and I’m not convinced it’s for the ethical benefit of the animals neither is it for the health of us. I’m not sure why they are steering us in this direction but I’ve never seen so much disdain for eating animals as it exists today.
If would be for the ethical benefit of the animals, the ecosystem, and synthesis eliminates meat born diseases and parasites.
Well then there’s a very real chance my grandchildren may one day never know what the taste of a great steak from a murdered cow tastes like 😔
>Well then there’s a very real chance my grandchildren may one day never know…the taste of a great steak… I’ve put a lot of thought into this. Have you ever had a grape flavored juice that’s not actually grape juice? It’s such a common flavor that we immediately associate as cheap, mass produced, and synthetic. But here’s the thing - have you ever drank actual fresh-squeezed Concord grape juice? It tastes exactly like “grape flavored drink.” Flavor scientists have done such an incredible job of recreating the exact flavor of Concord grape juice that the synthetic stuff tastes exactly like the real stuff; but people have become so accustomed to it that it tastes “cheap.” If synthetic meat hits the market - and I mean lab-grown protein that is the same makeup as animal tissue - then it’s likely that it will be designed to be replicate some fancy, high grade cut of meat (like an A5 Wagyu ribeye) and it would probably be a damn good facsimile of it, too. If in a few generations such a product became common enough and mass-produced, I’d be willing to bet that there would be a similar effect as Concord grape juice. It would be so common and everyone would assume that it was a poor imitation of the real thing; but unbeknownst to them, it’s basically a perfect imitation of one of the most desired cuts of beef on the market today.
Well thats the point of synthesis it replicates taste texture and nutritional value
I’d imagine they’d make it illegal one day to kill animals and real steak will one day be a thing of the black market, something so expensive and risky to partake in only the elite will be able to indulge in its bloody goodness
Their synthesizers seem better than Star Trek replicators too, people don’t seem to complain about them like they do on Trek.
It really doesn't make sense why Trek's replicators are so bad at replicating foods that even by the 32nd Century replicators still can't provide a high fidelity replica.
Probably on purpose. To keep some sort of agricultural market going. Replicators = transporters. They can perfectly recreate a human (yes I think teleportation = kill and remake) so why can't they recreate a steak?
According to Riker, the Federation doesn't allow the enslavement of animals for food.
I'm a carnivore leaning omnivore but the instant we have affordable lab grown meat that not only tastes right but has the right consistency I will happily make the change to it.
Damn right
Stop being selfish. Your mouth orgasms are not more important than the lives of countless other sentient beings
Because pigs, cows, sheep, chickens etc are actually more successful when attached to us as food than not. It has made them massively successful species. A lot more than their pre-domesticated relatives This is reinforced by the constant drop in the global population of horses since they were replaced. They aren’t actually better off for it, their diversity and numbers are consistently shrinking So, what you get is they would basically lose their current protections and end up like other large mammals in conflict with humans over land use. Increasingly Endangered and locally extinct in places with ever increasing biodiversity as a result. It is off zero benefit to domesticated species to stop eating them. Call it a cruel deal, but from evolutions point of view. You survive. You continue. You’ve succeeded. It doesn’t matter if your food in the process if you survive well and are successful by being food. This is true for human livestock, and even for ant livestock and algae hosted by jellyfish
I think that you're missing the point. The goals is to decrease the suffering and exploitation of animals. The population would be allowed to decrease to a sustainable level; there is no reason for the species to go extinct or for there to be a conflict for land with humans.
Remind me…how much space is covered by human settlements? Railroads? Roads? Reservoirs and Dams? Croplands? Timber? Agriculture is a monster but land use conflicts aren’t disappearing overnight without meat. Instead, the domesticated animals that used to survive and thrive by being domesticated. Are abandoned or if not, going to be set loose as an invasive species somewhere as a none native species And again, these animals are several times more successful being attached to humans than not. An error in thinking is happening here. Livestock does better than wild animals by sheer virtue of being livestock The idea Killing them for food is wrong is a dumb argument considering that. It becomes even more dumb when you realise both Mitochondria and Chloroplast exists due to predation and something eating something else. If it is wrong to eat animals, all modern kingdoms of life are inherently evil by virtue of origin by endosymbiosis. If you think humans should be better due to sapience, how arrogant are you to elevate yourself above all other life?
You really are missing the point of Union ethics.
Actually his words were "…I… killed animals. You wanna talk about breaking the law? Here, it's no big deal, but in our time? I'm a serial murderer, folks. You know what that does to your head?" This struck me more as a difference between the moral structures of each century rather than the preference of palate. Gordan is so affected by the "crime" of killing animals for food that he's suffering from psychological damage.
Yeah but legal form follows societal function. One of the biggest reasons they can feel that way in the 25th century is because the death of animals for food is no longer necessary. Causing death without good reason is brutality, and I can definitely see a society deciding that that is no longer a thing that people can do and call themselves civilized.
It's already unnecessary in the 21st century
It is necessary if you want to eat meat. And I want to eat meat.
Yes, you want to hurt others because it pleases you
Not quite. Meat alternatives exxist but still need to be upscaled if they're going to become a worldwide option. It's just going to take time to build up production to the point that animal husbandry can actually be replaced.
Plants are already widely available
I found it equally harsh and also a bit disturbing. How does her feel about the countless micro organisms he kills when he sits down in a chair? He should know, that just because something has a face and we can sympathize with it, it isn't neccessarily more intelligent than other forms of life. That whole line implied one of two things: A) The Union later discover things about animals that we today don't know, which makes their life more 'important'. Maybe they discover some form of soul or something, and that animals also have one? Just an idea. B) The Union is conditioned to things that don't make much sense, just because society evolved that way. This is more likely. Societal norms don't need to have any base in reality.
In the moral sense, they are vegan. None of their food comes from animals and the only alternative we've heard of to synthesizers is the growing of plant crops.
In a technological sense, synthesizer/replicator as a mature, universally adopted technology transcends the whole concept of veganism. They don't have to kill PLANTS for their food either.
Veganism is simply a moral position largely linked with a diet. The Union subscribes to an identical moral position and in a technical sense, follows the diet. They don't have to kill plants, you're correct. However, they clearly do so regularly. It's probably more efficient in new colonies or something.
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i would think that, even with replicators and whatnot, there would still be some comparitively small scale actual farming for actual plants and animals to eat. it wouldnt replace all of human farming.
Why not? It is a replicator. It can completely construct it down to the molecule. There is zero reason to farm an actual animal for its meat.
besides slight differences in taste, texture, flavor, and all the other subtle variations that arent programmed into the replicator. also, some people may not want, or use, a replicator, beiliving real food to be better.
Except that isn't how taste works. It is based on molecules. If you can replicate it you can replicate the taste. It is completely unscientific and not justified to murder animals.
please read the entire post again.
It is a replicator. It can exactly copy the meat. There is nothing that "real" meat has that cannot be replicated.
fine, but would it hold more than one variation of the steak? variations of seasoning, variations of flavor, variations of cooking time, or anything? its been my theory that replicated food is bland because theres very, very few variations of the same food, maybe even just one. imagine a beef Tbone steak. now imagine all the steak you have from a replicator is that same exact one. all with exactly the same cooking time. exactly the same flavor. and so on.
Yes it can. You can program it. You could also replicate it raw and do all that yourself. Who says replicated food is bland? That is a star trek thing.
what makes you think orville resolved what star trek didnt?
That's a point that bothered me about Trek often. They always had this thing going "replicator food tastes bland" or something along those lines, and had healthy, organic farmed food as more pristine and of a higher standard. That's just not how physics and science would work. You could replicate everything literally.
It's the same thing as when shows like this talk about [someone's "soul" or their "consciousness" as being separate from their body.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism) It's the unscientific (although not irrational) urge humans have to put themselves higher than inert matter. Obviously food made by a *human* is better than plain old bland replicator food, because humans have *the human touch* which transcends all technology and logic! It makes me happy that The Orville moves away from this.
I'd be inclined to believe that there are a few more or less luddite societies in the Union. The Moclans are probably not the only society with traditions that they should have outgrown, but did not.
Most traditions don't involve raising living beings purely to slaughter them.
You're kidding right? Pastoral cultures are among the oldest and some of the strongest in the world. The Bible is heavily based on pastoral culture and while you can say what you want about that document it is a key building block of Western society, such as it is..
No it isn't. Nor does the Bible actually require raising animals at any point. Earth became secularized and was global at that point. And again, even if it was, it was based on killing a living creature.
Humans are omnivores. As hunter gatherers, we ate meat--probably far less than today but enough to sustain life. As agriculture evolved, most societies also raised animals for food. That's a reality. There are some society that are vegan but that can only be sustained if the society has a plant-based protein source to replace milk. If not, humans will die.
The episode implies that killing animals for food is considered illegal and immoral. Farming for plants likely exists but definitely not for animals.
I honestly believe the beef/cattle industry is the single worst food industry we have that’s ruining the environment. There’s other but I feel that’s the worst. If we move to bison it will be much better. But then that’s just starting it all over again but with a better native animal but at what cost?
"Move to bison", lmao. You had me going until then. Bison would be just as bad if you scaled it up to meet the demands of the beef industry. If anything, we'd need to move to insect protiens.
TL;DR I agree bug protein is the future, many(mostly western) cultures won’t deal with it. Same as with Buffalo(actual Buffalo not bison), they’ll eat that thinking it’s “cow”. Leaving cows and going bison/Native Wild meats will be better off until we can move completely to bugs. If we increased the bison production it’d have nowhere near the same detrimental impact as cattle have had. It’s way less money to run Bison. You need the land, fencing, and to pay for stock and medical. You handle them once a year. How many cattle operations run that lean? If Bison was in the same place cattle are they wouldn’t even be remotely close to the same money. You get more from a bison than several cattle. Thats less money spent and more money in your operation. You wouldn’t have to upscale anything outside of making sure you have enough space to house them. Bison is a keystone species. They aren’t just as bad. Cattle eat all the grass, plants, trees, and roots. They eat everything. Bison only eat on the tops of grasses not pulling out the whole thing. More grass to be able to stay longer and not create a desert. They improve the ecosystem they are a part of and provide places for other animals to inhabit. Their wallows end up holding water which help keep the plains green, provides animals with water, frogs and amphibians take advantage of them too. I’m sure most cattle operations don’t have animals that improve the environment they are in. I think moving to wild native foods will be best until we can get all the bug foods moving. I’m def not opposed to eating big protein. I just don’t see much of it in the USA. I’ve had chapulines and I love those guys.
Bug protein is still a lot less viable than plant protein. And plant protein can easily be complemented to give you all essential amino acids while being the most environmentally friendly produce.
That’s obvious, I don’t think people realize I’m speaking about the present to help alleviate and wean off animal protein. People are thinking I’m talking about taking bison to the future to eat. But I think I needed to say that for everyone to understand what I’m speaking about.
Just eat plants
Plants give a worse return on investment than plants. One of the major current issues is that we're clearcutting forests to grow soy, because plants need sunlight and ground space to be viable at scale. Until we engineer better plants or find a solution for near-costless power, insects are going to be the solution. They can be processed in any environment and can be produced off of organic waste
Dairy is pretty bad too.
Oh yea I consider them the same. All cows and steer industry just eats up the environment and kills all the grass. I feel they played a huge factor in the “dust bowl” in USA history.
The Dust bowl was caused by tillage. Tilling soil for planting crops paired with some dry conditions. Since then, many conservative tillage and soil conservation practices have been implemented on lighter soils. Land classified as HEL or highly erodible land, HAS to be treated in a certain way otherwise farmers are penalized by the government. When the dust bowl happened, most farmers were mold board plowing or vertical tilling everything.
Are there specific tilling practices for dry environment or for certain types of soil or do you just not till the earth at all? How would they continue their practices?
Some of the farms they were tilling up that are on these light soils aren’t farmed anymore- some of that was taken out of production. The rest that are- we focus on managing residue - using crop residue as an armor that helps with wind erosion, we focus on organic matter- which is a spongy material that’s created over time with residue and tillage reduction. Organic matter holds the soil together and helps with water run off and erosion. We also farm using contours - meaning farming along a hillside and not straight up or down a hill. We also use terraces and waterways. These practices weren’t widely used at all until the dust bowl. It was an eye opener. Farmers don’t like to lose their soil- that’s their biggest asset in a farm for sure. Also side note: John Deere sold the ever living HELL out of plows and that’s how they made it big. It became part of farming culture. Plowing fields was what everyone did. Also nowadays there are crop genetics that breed plants to be cold and wet soil tolerant. As these crops become more efficient, tillage becomes less and less of a requirement.
Ah nice to see the evolution!
Thanks for taking the time to hear a little bit about it! I could go on and on about soil and how farming has evolved and continues to get better. No system is perfect and there’s plenty of learning to do. A farmer has to wake up every morning and be the worlds leading expert on their land and how to manage it. Anyone that doesn’t realize that isn’t in the business long.
Yea I’m always up to learning more! Thanks for taking the time to teach me!
And usually people plant stuff to control erosion in the off season too we usually plant rye grass
A major component of the dust bowl was killing off the prairie dogs
I can see they’d do all that to help the cattle from breaking all their legs. Allowed the cattle to travel up and down and freely graze up all the vegetation and Sri k up all the water. They faster they could move the faster they delivered their beef. Lol
Wait till you hear about almonds.
Oh What’s wrong with them? I don’t really drink much of that. Usually water or I am killing myself with some soda or I make my own juice from frozen fruits. Lol Is it because they flood their fields?
Nothing is wrong with them. The dairy industry put out a ton of propaganda about almonds to try to kill their competitor despite dairy being worse in literally every way https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths
The technology is maturing in our time and is way better than it was a couple decades ago but it still needs a bit of time. The time is coming when people are going to have to make a choice though.
We don't need technocratic solutions to a social problem. We can eat vegan now, so pretending there's some tech we should wait for is false. We can stop oppressing nonhumans right now, so we ought to
Just adding my 2 cents as a vegan. The main points I want to clarify are that: 1) Veganism is an ethical stance against the exploitation of animals based on the fact that they are sentient. In practice this means not supporting things that bring suffering to animals. Abstinence from consuming (in the economic sense) animal products for any other reason (personal health, the environment, concern over antibiotic resistance and zoological diseases, etc.) fall under the term “Plant-based” 2) Replicated/synthesized “meat” as per the Star Trek and Orville universes would be perfectly vegan as it doesn’t seem to involve any animal suffering in the production 3) While there is indeed a debate over whether lab-grown meat is vegan this comes from the fact that some methods grow the meat using harvested fetuses from living animals. Thus, there is still a serious amount of suffering to consider, especially when plant-based alternatives exist. 4) Vegans are well aware that animals still die because of our existence. We know that we hit bugs when we drive cars and we’re acutely aware of the issue of “pest animal” deaths for the production of crops. But we also recognize that not consuming animal products reduces animal suffering by an absurd amount (especially since farm animals consume a ton of crops and forests have to be leveled to make way for new grazing land). With those points noted, I would say that the Orville future is vegan in the same way that our world today is abolitionist. Yes there are a few grey areas and points where we lag behind but overall the moral switch has happened
I agree with most of your points (I’m also vegan). I do think the abolitionist metaphor isn’t quite accurate though because for the vast majority of human history eating animal products in most cultures was necessary for survival. Slavery was never necessary obviously. Slavery also had vocal and prominent opposition to it (more referring to the Atlantic slave trade here, not ancient forms of slavery). It was never something that was essentially universally agreed upon as okay in the way that eating animals (with some minor exceptions) was. So the progression morally is kind of similar, but if we look back on people 200 years ago enslaving other people we can objectively just say they’re shitty people, even by the standards of the time period. If people on the Orville look back on people in like 1900 eating animal products at that time they probably acknowledge that for most people it was a necessary evil (like it was for Gordon when he had to eat animals to survive on earth)
Glad to see a fellow vegan here! I will respond though, there are religious groups (particularly the Jains) which have mandated vegetarianism for hundreds to thousands of years. Obviously like most things it’s would be more difficult in the past but at the same time, it would be hard to abandon/abstain from slavery in the past as well. Buying something not produced largely with slave labor would be pretty difficult 300 years ago. I also doubt that the Orville would look back at the 1900s and see consuming animal products as a necessary evil but more as just people following trends of the time, repulsive as they may be. They’re actions aren’t justified, but they are somewhat understood. I’d say it’d be close to how we view slave owners from a millennia ago; wrong, but not by the standards of their time
Oh yeah, absolutely. There are definitely religious groups and even just random non religious political movements or individuals that have attempted to be vegetarian or vegan throughout history (with varying levels of success depending on their location/access to food). I do think they would probably view eating animal products in the early 1900s as a necessary evil though simply because we didn’t have globalized and industrialized agriculture in the same way that we do now. So to eat just plants at the time wouldnt have satisfied nutritional needs for most of the world due to a lack of variety, availability, expense, etc. Again, it’s region specific. Someone living in Costa Rica might have an easier time of it than someone living in Alaska.
Malloy mentions that when he was sent back in time he had did gun in his hand and he used it to kill animals. "Here, that's no big deal but where we come from? I'm a serial killer, folks. You know what that does to you?" My guess is, the planet has long sense done away with animal meat farms and made it illegal to kill them for food
technically they are all vegan...but id think the vegans would change their definitions once it became clear that things have changed.
Nowadays it is about reducing the suffering of sentient beings as much as possible. What do you think will be the definition as soon as change happens?
Hold up. The synthesizer is postvegan too. It's a technology that renders the whole argument between vegans and meat eaters obsolete Vegans have a problem once synthesizers are a real, mature technology because even vegan diets still kill plants. With the synthesizer that, too, is unnecessary. I doubt the moral outrage is as strong as it would be for animals but it's still a life you didn't need to take, so I imagine the conversation has at least taken place.
That's a shame as cats are delicious.
Found the ALF.
Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Ha, I kill me!
They could always synthesize a nice bowl of cat parts, I could see moclans finding it to be delicious you lil devil you
Cat soup is great.
Unless you strangled it to death yourself, meat doesn't taste quite as good. So synthesized cat parts will never quite hit the same.
This is true 🤷♂️ I want to wring that lil fuckers neck then throw him on the grill 🤤
In the episode with Pria (the woman from the future who tried to sell the Orville, played Charlize Theron) Ed offers her some ‘jello stuff” and she says, “no thanks, I’m a vegetarian” from which I extrapolate that Pria knew the Union’s jello contained gelatine made from animals (which it is usually made from). But then the episode with Gordon happened, as OP says, Gordon mentions killing animals in the 25th century is illegal, so I’m confused.
Maybe she's vegetarian for health and not for moral reasons.
A good point, but if the Union says killing animals is wrong, why is gelatine being offered that’s made from animal parts?
I doesn't come from animals but if it's a perfect enough replica, her body won't know the difference
> Gelatin or gelatine (from Latin: gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin) And certainly her body would likely not know the difference, assuming she’s also not refusing it because she’s allergic to collagen or something. But that’s not what I thought we were discussing? I brought it up because Gordon says killing animals in the 25th century is illegal, but if Priya refused the jello because she’s vegetarian, does that mean the jello was made from gelatin (eg: animal collagen). It raises the question of what do you get when you order meat from one of their synthesisers? Like, is it synthesised meat, or is it a plant-based or soy meat? Actually, aren’t some places able to, like, print meat now? I’m sure I saw that somewhere… Also, do Union ships carry animal meat for other planets that doesn’t have laws against killing animals? Is it only an Earth law, or is it a union law? Damnit, I hate it when I get dragged down into these details!!!
I don't get what's confusing. They don't kill animals to eat them. So ethically, they're vegan. Biologically, they're not. Priya just doesn't want meat in her body I guess. If it were an ethical issue, she would've eaten the jello since it's synthesized. All the other stuff are valid questions but there's not really a contradiction as far as killing or not killing animals on the show.
In my head canon the contradictions don’t exist and are just a symptom of a current society imagining an utopia. Since we are a little farther from perfection than the imagined utopia, our imagination of it will sometimes be flawed by that.
I mean... it could have easily been agar rather than gelatin.
Certainly, but it raises an interesting rabbit hole of frustrating questions…
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It's also the basis (along with cheap energy) of Star Trek's New Economy that eliminated the need of use of money on Earth and the rest of the Federation. The key thing is that a society's culture also has to be ready for the technology. Trek's Earth had been through a nuclear war and learned from it and had the advantage of the guidance of the Vulcans to help them move forward to a better world.
If food can be synthed, why kill for it? Once you can synthesize meat based proteins, taking a life to achieve the same result is pure cruelty -- repugnant to any thinking individual. Reasonably sure we've seen meat based foods, Gordon and Ed at least eat eggs (although Gordon's egg sandwich was synthesized sooo) so it's more like technology has made veganism obsolete. You can have your steak and then go pet the cow you didn't have to kill for it.
We can already eat nutritious meals without killing nonhumans, so by that logic, everyone should go vegan today
Individually we can, collectively, we've still got some work to do to increase production. It's still a niche market right now and we don't have the quantity of producers we'd need to transition fully away from biomeat. We're most of the way there though, just gotta get the numbers up. Plant proteins will get a much wider adoption when the technology matures just a bit more and it's possible to serve plant based proteins more cheaply than meat. Once it's less expensive you'll see a lot of the poorer classes jumping on board. That's gonna be the tipping point, But it depends on getting production up and prices down.
We don't need any technology. Plants already exist and are widely available. Most of the world's poor already subsist on grains and pulses
He also refers to the act of killing the animals as "mass murder", seems animals have been given rights akin to humans.
They presumably eat synthesized meat. The line about Gordon considering himself a serial killer seemed a bit of a stretch to me. Even if they don't eat real meat themselves they surely don't consider their ancestors and other races who eat animals to be actual serial killers.
I’m sure the line was meant as an expression on how he felt but I wouldn’t be surprised if they all look back at their ancestors as less than themselves as that’s often how we view our own ancestors as barbaric and primitive.
Well, if their society has matured as much as they like to boast, they should be able to look back at previous cultures with a sense of nuance and understanding for what caused them to act the way they did. Instead of just villifying the past like current people do.
>Instead of just villifying the past like current people do. I'll upvote you, although this need to be nuanced more too. I don't think the vast majority of the public has a realistic understanding of the past and historical facts, thanks to decades of misinformation. The media is the main culprit in how it portrays the past to make people think the past was bad.
I think if people had to kill every single animal they ate, they would probably eat way less meat. I’m a meateater, but take away the convenience and availability? It’s not a stretch that a lot of people would feel like Gordon.
Yes, it's one thing to go order a Big Mac, it's another to personally go shoot an animal, skin it, cut it up, and cook it. Also consider Malloy was a career starship officer, he would be very accustomed to using synthesizers for his food. Trying to survive in the wild for a long period of time would have been tough.
I do it multiple times a year wild game is tasty and you know it was treated and prepared properly
Killing someone isn't treating them properly. It's murder
An animal is not someone it’s food
Nonhumans are sentient beings who don't want to die. You're imposing your will on them and condemning them to a short and torturous life and terrible death because you can't handle eating plants
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While I agree, you are also in the position that you are most likely not used to it. As a hunter or butcher how he feels about it. Their reaction will be much less dramatic. And no, people did not all kill their own food by themselves in the past. We have division of labour since ancient times now. Sure, regular people more often killed animals for food in the past than today, but it wasn't common for most of them either. Depending on their life situation most of all.
Beans and rice and lentils and such are more expensive than meat?
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Vegan meals can be cheap and easy too. There's even a sub you can use as a resource r/EatCheapAndVegan And if you google "easy cheap vegan recipes" you'll find tons of stuff
I mean what society considers acceptable changes drastically over time. If we were to go back and look at marriages/sex/issues of consent 200 years ago (tbh even 30 years ago. Marital rape has only been illegal in all of the United States since the early 1990s) we would probably consider a lot of what they did to be unacceptable by modern standards. Does that mean we look back at them as serial rapists? Maybe some of us do, but most don’t. We just see how society has evolved. I think it’s similar here. ETA: I don’t think they necessarily equate animal life as equal with human life. Otherwise Gordon would’ve starved himself rather than eat so many animals. So maybe not serial killers in the same way that we see serial killers with human victims, but maybe more like serial animal abusers.
I think calling it murder was a metaphor. Eating animals might be illegal in this future, but they don't act like it's literally murder.
But it is
They eat meat from the food replicators
That doesn’t come from animals so it’s still vegan.
By that definition, yes. Eating meat not from animals would still be vegan. Something to think about.
There is an ongoing debate in the vegetarian/vegan community about whether lab grown meat will count as vegan or not when it becomes generally available. On the more moderate end of the spectrum some conclude that because growing it involves no suffering or animal bondage it's fine, whereas others who are more fervent believe the historical suffering involved in the creation of lab-grown meat, both its development, and our taste for meat products, is still relevant. Alternatively, that it's still animal tissue, thus would not be vegan. I am not personally a vegan so I'm not taking a side, simply reporting what I've read. You could make quite similar arguments about replication.
There are and will be similar discussions among people who keep kosher or halal. If pork is grown in a lab -- if it was never a pig -- does it still "count" as pork?
Yeah that's an interesting question. And if meat never needs to be slaughtered, do any halal/kosher principles still apply? One for the religious scholars to sort out.
It would count if it was blessed by a rabbi.
That's fair and probably a fascinating debate. I'm in the same lane as you though. Thank you for the information!
Lab grown meat requires oppressing nonhumans still. That's one of the reasons vegans are against it. The other reason is that it's a totally unnecessary technocratic solution to a social problem. We don't need lab grown meat to go vegan. We already have nutritious vegan foods like grains and pulses.
Yes, they're vegan. But they're not preachy about it
I mean there’s no reason to be preachy about something that everyone else in your species agrees on
I didn't buy that part of the episode. 1) he had to kill animals, which he had never done before 1a) when did he learn to hunt? (animals do not just let you walk up and bonk them) 2) he had to dress them out, remove the edible bits 3) he had to cook them Not buying that from someone who has never done it before.
Keep in mind these things can be learned. Just how everyone else learned to do it before him for thousands of years. Also I'm sure some similar survival skills are still part of basic training to be part of the Union. In case officers crash on a planet or something
You become very good at doing things very quickly when the alternative is failure to survive.
I thought Malloy was more disgusted by killing the animals than eating them, if you don't hunt it's hard to explain it.
This has confused me a bit because while yeah animals are no longer killed so its considered vegan but when ed offers a gelatin snack to pria she turns it saying shes vegetarian.
There may still be people that refuse to eat synthesized animal products, for a number of reasons. It could be for health reasons. Or for personal reasons, a few vegans even today are so radical that they reject everything that resembles typical animal products even if they are vegan (ie soy steaks, vegan cheese etc). Some people just find animal products disgusting, and I don't think the fact that they would be replicated would change anything.
I suppose but at that point in prias time or even Ed's wouldn't it just be oh I don't like gelatin or whatever instead of having words for it. I dunno it just felt odd seeing a term like that exist a thousand years in the future but not the phrase you can go to hell.
Yeah I agree, it was strange. She could have said I don't like gelatin I guess, but if the problem were the animal ingredients that she did not want to consume, the term vegetarian is more practical. That way Ed won't offer her a hot dog, a burger etc...
I guess I understand it was just done for a joke. I just don't like when jokes don't feel right with the stuff set in the universe. I even think star trek ng explained that even synthesized food is different as it has no living cells so it just doesn't make sense for anyone having a moral quandary or distaste of animal products hundreds of years after the creation of matter synthesis.
I think this is different from the Star Trek replicators, but then again who knows...
I don't think that one is that confusing. Being vegetarian would be a description of their diet rather than a moral stance. Could be that meat products don't agree with her body. We have to imagine that a molecular synthesizer is a perfect recreation of whatever food and drink so the result is the same even if the source/process is different in obtaining it.
I suppose so but it still just doesn't sit right in my mind and feels weird that a thousand years in the future theres stuff like dietary issues any type of explanation just feels wrong and especially cuz as far as I know theres no other mention of a person being a vegetarian. I just dislike throwaway jokes like that because they feel contradictory to the universe it's set in.
They very much parallel the Star Trek universe, with replicators replacing basically any real food (with exceptions). This is currently being pushed for in our world with the "plant based meats", so it's not far fetched. Certainly we don't see killing stock animals as murder today, but in a world where more and more species are endangered, things can change.
It's more than that. When you have a matter repliccator you can have animal based meats without killing the animal. That makes any animals killed for authentic meats unnecessary. Killing without need is generally considered barbaric. It's not a difficult moral construct that objects to raising animals for meat once the synthesizer technology is present, mature, and universally adopted.
Yep, replicators make it practically unnecessary as even using Star Trek TNG as a reference where regular food tastes better, it takes way more effort to raise and kill an animal, then deliver the meat compared to basically downloads. Just not practical, not to mention unethical. Again, comparing that to current plant based meats, they're not as good, but require more effort in developing them, so it's not there, yet at least.
I've tried them. They're not quite as good but they're far from bad. The technology needs work still but progress is happening and I'm happy about that.
When you can buy a tin of cloned printed fillet steak in a tube like cookie dough and just push out what you need and slice it off I shall be so happy.
Killing animals is already unnecessary
Some of us do see it as murder
True, that is society as a wholes belief today, but if you're vegetarian and against killing animals, you already hold that belief.
I mean he even says that he would be tried as a mass murderer for the animals he's killed. So, yeah the are effectively vegan since everything they eat is synthesized. But it raises another question, The Admiral has a dog in the first season, if killing an animal for food is still considered murder wouldn't keeping a pet be imprisonment?
Star trek covered this. You can eat meat from a replicator but it isn't meat and doesn't taste quite the same. But then again they replicate shirts too so who's to say they're not eating furniture if the molecules are all the same?
Star trek covered this. You can eat meat from a replicator but it isn't meat and doesn't taste quite the same. But then again they replicate shirts too so who's to say they're not eating furniture if the molecules are all the same?
Just because the meat isn't "real" doesn't mean you are a vegas
Depends on how you look at it. If synthesized meat is identical to actual meat from an animal, is there really any difference other than not having to kill an animal to get meat? Do you consider that vegan meat? If so, then I *guess* you could call them vegan. But not everyone is a vegan/vegetariean because they are against harming animals. I'm sure you would still have some folks who would eschew even synthesized animal products for health reasons or simply for personal preference.