The thing I've noticed most about the profusion of plant-based fake meats is the almost total lack of information about their nutritional content. We get the usual % of several RDAs mandated by US law, and that's all. The generous people who've decided to sell me this stuff - taking up space in the meat section of my local grocery store - have not troubled to inform me whether any of these concoctions contain complete protein, or any of the nutrients vegans have trouble getting in adequate quantities.
Being cynical, I presume that if the information was *good*, and would tend to encourage me to buy their products, they'd be trumpeting it to the housetops. Of course I spend far less time consuming advertisements than normal people, so I may have missed one way they could try to inform prospective buyers. But why is there nothing useful on the packaging itself? I'm going to presume that a diet heavy in fake meat will be nutrient deficient in some way, unless and until I hear otherwise - from sources I consider reliable, at that.
Of course an unintelligently chosen diet lacking meat, substituting vegetable protein sources has the same risks. But handling this is easy - I can either follow a traditional low or no meat diet (with all of its traditional components), or I can consult available references written for the not-especially-educated consumer.
The other thing I notice is that they just about all contain rape seed (canola) oil. While I'm failing to find a reference to cite, I believe that intolerance of canola oil is more frequent than intolerance of just about any commonly consumed oil, particularly among asthmatics. Whether or not I'm right in my memories about the incidence numbers, intolerance of canola oil is definitely a thing. I live with a woman for whom canola oil is an exceedingly reliable emetic - if she consumes it, she barfs. And no, she does NOT have to know that the canola oil is present.
I saw no hint of either of these questions in a fast skim of the relevant article. In fact, it signaled its superficiality by asking whether or not these fake meats "were good for you", based on simple equations like "processed=bad" and "real meat=bad". Neither of those are true, as absolutes.
It did redeem itself somewhat by talking about the difficulties of doing diet comparisons. But at the same time it omitted the obvious - good for who? bad for who? in what quantities and proportions? Most people can probably eat a beyond beef burger with no ill effects. (Unless they respond badly even small quantities of canola oil). I suspect that someone who tries to live on little more than beyond beef burgers would probably get just as sick as someone who tried to live on little more than McDonald's hamburgers. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less - the producers haven't deigned to tell me enough to even start to predict that.
I'd like to see an article that gives me useful, actionable information. Meanwhile, no sale. When I want to eat vegetable based protein, I can choose among a large number of sources that won't taste *almost* like meat, and will have a better understood nutrient profile.
I don't think this is true? I've never had a problem figuring out what I need to know from nutrition labels.
> The generous people who've decided to sell me this stuff - taking up space in the meat section of my local grocery store - have not troubled to inform me whether any of these concoctions contain complete protein
The protein sources are required by US law to be listed in the ingredients, and you can deduce whether it's a complete protein. If it says the product uses, say, pea protein isolate, then all you need to do is look up the amino acid composition of pea protein.
> or any of the nutrients vegans have trouble getting in adequate quantities.
Protein, iron, B12, and zinc will be listed under Nutrition Facts. Not sure what you want that isn't listed.
Maybe it's different in different countries. I live in the Netherlands, and I just checked the nutrition facts for a Beyond burger on the site of my supermarket. It doesn't say anything about iron, vitamins or zinc, which probably means it doesn't have any B12 or B2.
> It doesn't say anything about iron, vitamins or zinc, which probably means it doesn't have any B12 or B2.
The Beyond Meat [0] and Impossible Foods [1] websites have this information and their burgers have similar amounts of these nutrients to comparable servings of ground beef:
Beyond Burger
iron: 4 mg (20% daily value)
zinc: 4.6mg (40% daily value)
B12: 2.4mcg (100% daily value)
B2 (riboflavin): not listed on the Beyond Burger page, but the Beyond Beef page says a 100 g serving (the Burger is 113 g) has 2.15 mg (165% daily value) [2]. The site says "Just like animal-derived ground meat and packaged burger patties, our Beyond Burger and Beyond Beef are both made from the same plant-based meat."
Impossible Burger
iron: 4.2 mg (25% daily value)
zinc: 50% daily value
B12: 130% daily value
B2 (riboflavin): 15% daily value
That's more iron, more or the same amount of B2, a little less or the same amount of zinc, and a little more or a little less B12 than an equivalent serving (4 oz) of beef [3] (I'm not sure about the right leanness to compare to). The iron might be approximately equivalent, since iron from non-animal sources is less bioavailable; studies seem to give wide ranges about how much less, but a value from somewhere in the middle would make them about even.
It's harder to find information about protein quality/amino acid profile. Beyond said in 2019 that the Beyond Burger had been updated to be a complete protein source (i.e., provides all 9 essential amino acids) [4]. I also found a study that said that for people ages 3+, real meat and Impossible are "excellent" protein sources and Beyond is a "good" protein source based on their respective DIAAS scores [5].
I looked up a beef product on a random Dutch supermarket website and it doesn't seem to list vitamins, so I'm thinking most sites just don't provide the full nutritional details [6].
Thanks, that's good to know! It's strange though – I know it's not required to put all that on the package here, but it's not like it's forbidden either; so why would they leave it off, when it's such a big point in their favor?
"I presume that if the information was *good*, and would tend to encourage me to buy their products, they'd be trumpeting it to the housetops....But why is there nothing useful on the packaging itself?"
I've thought about that, not when it comes to impossible meat, but when it comes to other foods. I think you're right, but I can also think of a reason why a food company might NOT trumpet the good aspects of what they sell. I could be because in order to say they have x, y, z good things, they have to meet a rigorous test that it's too costly to meet. So they might have x, y, z good things, but it's too hard to prove the claim, so they don't say it.
I hope I'm being clear. I just woke up and am probably still a little groggy. (No, I'm actually just a sub-competent writer, but I'm going to blame the morning.)
Even if I'm right, that doesn't mean you're wrong. I stay away from impossible meat, even though I eat regular meat that's probably not too good for me. I'm just offering a possible reason why a vendor wouldn't tout the "good" aspects of their wares.
Beware of Chicken is an excellent parody of the genre. A cultivator/self-insert has a near-death experience and says "Screw this, I'm going to become a farmer." And ironically, in deciding not to pursue power, he ends up becoming far more powerful than he could have expected.
It's a good parody because it knows and loves the genre it's parodying. All the mythic xianxia stuff is still going on *around* Jin's farm, the rest of the cast is busy hunting bandits and going to martial arts tournaments and uncovering long-lost secrets of cultivation, and Jin is just like "Have fun, don't forget to write, stop by if you want a home-cooked meal." It's basically a cultivation novel from the perspective of the old master who gives cryptic advice to the protagonist.
However, I must give the disclaimer to potential readers that everyone I know, including myself, has ended up dropping the story after a few months over the classic issue of "nothing happens". The start is probably worth checking out, but curb your expectations.
As a counterpoint, I still continue reading it. However, I agree that nothing happens. I probably only continue reading it because it's comfy and chapters are released slowly enough that it makes up a small percentage of what I read in any given week. It possibly is not great for binge reading after a certain point. It's slice of life, not adventure or anything particularly exciting (with some exceptions when the story briefly focuses on side characters).
I had tried reading this on Royal Road a while back and was very confused after the first chapter because it was a massive time skip and hard to follow. I didn't realize that the in-between chapters were removed when the author them into a book.
Depends on what you're looking for. For a "classic," The Path Toward Heaven by Mao Ni is good - and as with all their novels, just stop at the obvious ending point, even though they keep writing words for too long after.
I LOVE cultivation novels, but so many are so bad. I think I've read all of the ones normally recommended — and dozens that only one or two people recommended too, on the off-chance — and... almost all of them are just awful.
(Note: I'm including "progression novels in general" in the below recommendations. Please recommend me anything not mentioned herein, too, despite my above claim — I've found a few of these just because one single person brought 'em up, e.g. Mark of the Fool!)
--------------------------
Exceptions (section 2) and sort-of exceptions (section 1), in rough order of ascending preference (with section 3 being "great enough to recommend for even the general reader"):
*****
* _A Thousand Li:_ Like the below, not bad. Also not as good, though. It's... pretty boring, at least after book 1, but it's at least not incompetent. Would be higher if books 2+ weren't so dull.
* _Reverend Insanity:_ Stilted (translated-from-Chinese) language, and typical Chinese weirdness (from my Western perspective, of course); I will admit I have taken a long break, so not sure I should include this or not; "gu" or whatever are just such a weird idea; but — such an unapologetically power-hungry and ruthless protagonist, so much of the *good* sort of weirdness in other cases... worth trying, perhaps.
* _Iron Prince:_ To be honest, I don't really like this one — the setting and the characters both are fairly bland to me, and predictable as heck — but a lot of people love it and it's... okay, if one of the two grabs you.
* _The Perfect Run:_ Well-written, and it's got lots of tension and mystery. I don't really like the comic-book-type MC and aspects of the setting, but the power variety is so cool anyway. Dropped it before finishing because I often do that (don't like endings) and I didn't really care enough about anyone in the book to want to finish regardless.
* _Kings of Paradise:_ Not bad; a little bleak for me, but ultimately... not bad. I enjoyed this one enough to finish without too many pauses; the characters are a step up from the previous few (and the next few, also). It would be a lot higher if it wasn't, eventually, just so dam' depressing.
Cool premise/setting, though.
* _Sufficiently Advanced Magic:_ Again, not bad. Again, didn't really looove it — took me a while to finish, and books I truly like tend to be consumed within a day; the characters are kind of bland, everyday sorts, and detail is sparse enough that I don't quite feel like I'm inhabiting the world, but... decent enough. Great magic/crafting system, even if maybe (maybe!) a tiny bit gimmicky.
A few linguistic errors, but the author got nauseated/nauseous right, so +1 for that.
* _Choice of Magic:_ Not great — real stereotypical/predictable characters and plot elements in a lot of cases, though *a few* others are pleasingly original; a few errors in language, though not many IIRC; protagonist isn't toooo interesting (bit of a Gary Stu) — but for all that, good-enough prose and characters, and cool enough premise, that I think I finished all but the final volume.
-------------
* _Reborn: Apocalypse:_ Something of a guilty pleasure, I enjoyed this enough to finish all extant volumes... so this is the line between "actually liked" and "sort-of liked", perhaps.
The language is stilted in that "non-native speaker" way that typically means "forget it", in my book, but it's also not really *error-filled*, and something about it was engaging enough that I could eventually look past that.
* _The First Binding:_ Occasional errors that irk me, and a NotW rip-off for sure (with the Gary-Stu-y protagonist that implies, although not quite as badly so as Kvothe) — but for all that, very enjoyable and I'm eager for the next. A cool setting and interesting-enough characters, and passable prose; a neat magic system and intriguing lore go a long way in my book.
* _A Testament of Steel:_ Fairly predictable in a lot of its elements — MC is a bit of a Gary Stu, in the usual ways of the genre, and many other developments are also exactly as you'd expect — and I listened on Audible, so not sure on the quality of the language use in text form; but still... the predictable bits are well-done, the world is interesting and original, and I like the characters well enough (though not especially: standard Hero And Friends, really).
...and I admit, the romance has got to me ("just kiss her, you fool!"). I'm excited for what happens next; got #2 immediately upon finishing #1.
(Can't really decide order between this one, the previous, and the next.)
* _Virtuous Sons:_ The setting and cultivation system are so good, man. It's definitely different, and a breath of fresh air — especially if you like (Greco-Roman) history and philosophy.
I'm only halfway through, but the writing style is a sort that never grabs me too hard — "sparse", you might call it — but it's good enough that I'm still going, and this may change.
* _Mark of the Fool:_ Only saw one person mention this ever, so it's sort of unknown (in my circles, at least) — but goddamn if I didn't love it! Likeable protagonist, interesting setting, satisfying progression, mysteries abound.
Again, this was an Audible purchase, so I can't vouch for the grammatical integrity of the original, but I'm thinking it's gotta be at least decent — the rest is too competent for it not to be, I'm betting...
* _Bastion:_ Amazing. I don't care if some elements are predictable — they're just the ones you've got to expect in this genre anyway ("I will triumph by being more determined and stubborn than anyone else!") — I really love the setting, the writing is good enough that I become absorbed, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
-------------
* Cradle: Amazing. I picked the first one up without knowing what I was getting into it; at first, I was totally uninterested — "what a weird setting and protagonist" — but by the end of the first few chapters, I was sneaking off to the bathroom at work to read *just a bit more.*
Laugh-out-loud moments, page-rippin' tension, excellent prose, cool characters, and a dizzying change in scope over and over when you least expect it ("wait... wait, THAT WASN'T THE LIMIT? NOT EVEN CLOSE?!" — don't want to give too many details and ruin the surprise, though!).
* _Mother of Learning:_ Amazing. Amazing. AMAZING. Also considered a sort of rationalist fic, so there's that too.
Such a cool premise, such satisfying progression, such fantastic mystery and intrigue — one of the few books, in any genre, that doesn't disappoint even a little on the reveal.
Can't say much more than that the only flaw I found in this work was that it ever ended; the setting, progression, mystery, characters, ending, everything — just one of my favorite things ever written.
*****
--------------------------
There are a lot of others frequently recommended, as I've mentioned — but most I just absolutely hate.
Mage Errant? Blech. Simplistic, and boring.
He Who Fights with Monsters? Lame, predictable Gary-Stu protagonist and plot, crap prose, irritatingly smug characters fêted instead of punished for idiocy...
Coiling Dragon? Low-IQ trash with stupid plot-holes.
Supreme Magus? Even lower-IQ trash and Gary Stu'd to hell.
Menocht Loop? Boring as hell, with a lame reveal and the most interesting part of the premise wasted.
Paragon of Destruction? ...great, actually; but frustrating because it will never be finished, so I cannot recommend.
Etc., etc....
...no offense to any fans of those, though! I'm just picky, heh; and I have a lower tolerance for some flaws than others.
(Final note: I haven't included a few on the list that had female protagonists, because I hated them but recognize that others might be okay with Action-Girl™-Is-Great-At-Everything-type tropes.)
--------------------------
As said, too: I would also appreciate recommendations, if our tastes seem similar!
Thanks. I've tried a few of these (edit:mostly stuff not on your list though) and like you, found the writing to often be terrible. The poor translations and crazy throughput don't help. I agree with your section 3. Cradle is amazing and mother of learning was pretty good too (I had to put it down because reading was interfering with my sleep 🙂)
Seconding Forge of Destiny (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/forge-of-destiny) as a well-written cultivation story. Some others I've enjoyed are Ave Xia Rem Y (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15193/ave-xia-rem-y), featuring a clever, patient protagonist who uses a mix of finesse and intrigue to try and overcome the "might makes right" attitudes in cultivator society, and When Immortal Ascension Fails, Time Travel to Try Again (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36597/when-immortal-ascension-fails-time-travel-to-try), a parody about a smart but reckless woman who got transported into a terrible cultivation story, got her ascension sabotaged the first time, but managed to send her soul back in time and is now try to use her future knowledge and experience to effectively speedrun the cultivation process.
In case someone tries and doesn't like these so much (as I didn't*, though they're certainly not bad by any means): I wouldn't call them typical of the genre. They're a bit "softer" and slower than the usual, I might say.
*(Well, okay, I haven't read the parody, and starting now.... I like it. But it's a parody, so probably fair to say it's not typical of the genre, right?!)
I'm the same, and it's perhaps the only topic I near-audibly groan in my mind when it's brought up, mostly because I see it as similar to sleeping (a bodily necessity for which it's uncommon but not unusual to make a hobby of pursuing specifics or variety [eg camping or luxury hotel travel]), but almost anyone who talks about it for longer than a minute seems to see the *hobby* as what they think should be a near-universal interest.
With most interests I see something akin to "others should be interested in listening to me talk about it, and I will be interested in listening to them in exchange", which I personally find to be a decent attitude for everyone to have and not annoying at all (epistemic status: sincere), but with food in particular it's usually "I am assuming others are interested and personally partake in the hobby of seeking out new ways of experiencing it", despite me sharing the interest about as much as a chronic vertigo patient shares an interest in theme parks.
(I'm actually somewhat OK with *discourse* on the subject similar to this magazine; it's mostly *social talk* on it that I'm not fond of, possibly because of this unspoken expectation that the talk be two-way and personal instead of merely about ideas)
Camping and luxury hotel travel aren't really about the sleeping, I'd say; that's sort of like saying "[...] some people make a hobby of sweating and urinating copiously (e.g., long-distance runners) [...]".
Like, yes, okay, those things *are* involved, but are incidental; so too is "sleeping in a new place" incidental to the stuff people usually seem to like about camping or travel. Contra your comparison: it seems very, very unusual to make sleeping a hobby, to my mind...
...not that this is important to your point or anything...
Honestly many long-distance runners and triathletes I know would chuckle quite a bit at that comparison... a friend of a friend once made a presentation on long-distance running for a short off-topic talk at his job and called it "How to suffer".
Not sure I'd appreciate being introduced as a writer by the epithet "my ex", no matter its informational accuracy. Maybe this person agreed beforhand though and doesn't mind.
Fair enough, I took it as a measure of journalistic disclosure like when an author notes that the company he's criticizing he worked for in the past/owns the paper that employs him, etc. Maybe putting after the name (disclosure, this is my ex-partner) would be a better framing?
Honestly, being Scott's ex is evidence of good character from where I sit; one cannot be Scott's ex without first being Scott's girlfriend, after all. Certainly, I've found myself thinking "she's Scott's ex, so clearly she's not *all* bad" on a couple of occasions.
The colors used on graphs are almost identical when there's no functional need for it, and the pie chart has actual color gradients (a specific color matching a specific meaning is the entire point! a gradient destroys that simple 1-to-1 correspondence!), and the pie chart has an awkward composition in general.
They really suffer from wild graphic designers running amok.
The cultivated meat article was a little less detailed than I was hoping, but still an interesting read. I think at the end of it, I'm perhaps slightly more optimistic in the long-term odds, but my thoughts on the short to medium term (5-10, maybe even 20 years) hasn't shifted much.
This issue of Asterisk seems like an interesting read, especially since it's centered around food-related topics. I'm particularly curious about the article on the downsides of the Green Revolution and how policymakers are trying to mitigate them. It's always important to consider the unintended consequences of technological advancements, especially when it comes to our food systems. I'm also intrigued by the article on cultivated meat and whether it will be able to compete with traditional meat on price. It's exciting to think about the potential for animal-cruelty-free meat, but it's also important to consider the economic viability of this technology. Overall, I'm looking forward to reading this issue of Asterisk and learning more about these important topics.
That oral rehydration therapy article gave me the same sort of swelling of humanist pride as child mortality graphs do. Behold the glory and splendour of humanity!
That nuclear winter/volcano interview freaked me out a little bit. 15 to 20 percent chance per century of VEI-7 event, which the interviewee claims would cause a 5-20 percent crop loss? That's much higher than I would have thought. We are not adequately prepared for something like that, and it's totally outside of our control, unlike nuclear winter. That would fuck the globe up in a hurry.
I'm afraid the 15-20% per century appears to be accurate for VEI-7s, with around 97 such eruptions over the last 60,000 years, and some evidence we are in a period of higher activity at the moment. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220817135557.htm
On top of that we have nuclear winters, which unfortunately are not disproven and seem solidly likely in a nuclear exchange. Both could cause up to 80% plus crop losses if we don't take immediate action, which would dwarf anything we have seen since agriculture began.
The good news is that we can take action, and even a VEI-8 eruption could be survivable by civilization for the first time in our history. That's what ALLFED is trying to work on, and while the challenge is huge it appears tractable.
Thanks for the reply. Not doing a lot to assuage my fears though!
Some follow-ups:
1. Is your organization more in the research part of this issue, or do you have actual contingency policy plans being created for the logistics of transporting/building the infrastructure to grow the right food?
2. Does ALLFED have regular communications with government decisions makers? As in, if something like this were to happen, are you confident your organization could be consulted immediately to make policy recommendations to help stave off that 80% figure? It doesn't sound like there's much time to waste to avoid total catastrophe in these scenarios.
3. You give an up to 80% figure here, with potentially a minimum of 5% if quick action is taken, and I assume, if the eruption were to be a minor VEI 7 versus a major VEI 7. Do you have an expected average for this number? This must be a very challenging thing to estimate, but the different is wide, and terrifying.
4. How localized would you expect the impacts of a VEI 7 to be? If the total loss is something between 5-20%, are you expecting almost 0% in some areas and closer to 90% in others? I guess, how local/global are temperature impacts from an eruption?
5. Somewhat unrelated, but has your group ever considered the effects of a major solar flare? Every since reading about the Carrington Event solar flare in the 1860s that's another similar thing I've worried about occurring now, with potential impacts on food distribution and production if it were to occur today, though not really in the same way.
This is a pretty fascinating extreme civilizational risk that I've not heard anything about before, so I'm glad someone is working on it!
Hi, all of these are great questions and cut quickly to a lot of the issues we consider. As a quick answer:
1: We do both, and now the research has advanced to the point where we can start to give actionable advice that we have confidence in we are starting to develop preparedness and response plans.
2. We do talk with governments, though only a few to date, and the plans are being considered in some cases (without going into details) and that hopefully should expand over time as countries see others taking action pre disaster. Post disaster we have considered this, and our own efforts would be a small part of the picture we hope that word would spread, but the more we do in advance the more likely that is.
3. The 80%+ figure is a severe event with no response. VEI 7s would be more like 5-20% losses globally, but that's still an unprecedented shock for over a century. Xia et al. 2022 has figures based on crop losses in each nuclear winter band, but that does assume very little is done to respond. We think more responses are possible. https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/xi08000i.html
4. Such events are global, though island nations, the tropics and areas that are hot would do better on average due to their location. Australia and New Zealand for example will be less hit than Russia and the United States.
5. Yes! We actually consider many different risks beyond abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios and losing agricultural complexity/industry would also be deeply catastrophic. The original Asterisk piece was actually going to include this, but it's so complex it would have doubled the length and created a bit of confusion with two topics. While there is debate on how bad a solar flare would be, anything that disrupts communications, electricity or industry on a large scale would be seriously problematic for agriculture, and we need that ag complexity to live.
It's all very fascinating, which is why I switched from a life of private sector consulting to thinking about these tail risks to the food system, and the interesting thing is just how much agency we might have if we plan and act effectively. Like always, for people who are interested there are job opportunities available, we need a variety of skills, and consider donating if you wish (as well as to other EA causes).
According to Bean over on Naval Gazing/DSL, nuclear winter very much *has* been disproven and the only people still touting it are cranks. It might be nice for you two to debate each other.
To be fair Bean raises some excellent points, and it is not certain what magnitudes nuclear winter will reach from even a defined conflict, like India/Pakistan or Russia/NATO. There's a lot of detail in all this, such as the time of year of the conflict (and thus climatic conditions, which are really important in lofting, Coupe 2019 does better modelling with this), fuel loads, counterforce/countervalue targeting, weapons used etc, and there's a lot of fair debate there.
By saying not disproven here, I'm saying that there remains a seriously credible channel -> firestorms can be caused by nuclear weapons, and are highly probable for detonations of large weapons over cities -> soot from those firestorms can be lofted into the stratosphere (very different to wildfires and oil well fires, where some quite frankly poor predictions have been made in the past, it's fair to raise that), where it can persist for at least a year, probably much longer -> enough detonations equals several degrees of cooling -> this would be devasting for agriculture.
I'm an agricultural economist, and I leave the detailed debates here to others with technical expertise, but there is a risk that skepticism over the possibility of 150 Tg scenarios (the largest typically studied) bleeds into thinking that any shock is impossible, and losing a few degrees implies conditions potentially worse than Tambora and the year without a summer. 20-30 Tg is plenty to cause a really massive climate shock, on top of the challenges of the direct and targeted damage of the conflict itself.
Does that mean in three years time the department of energy will endose it and the NYT will write sympathetic articles about it without referencing their previous hostility towards it?
It seems like there is no way to comment on the Asterisk articles, so I will just put my thoughts here instead.
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Zvi observed [0] that the headlines of media are generally particularly unreliable. Unfortunately, this also seems to be the case here. The article "Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc" mentions zinc only in the headline. More worrisome, "Feeding the World Without Sunlight" talks about handling the impact of _reduced_ sunlight (and thus lower temperatures), not trying to growing food plants in artificial light for eight billions.
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With regard to the NIH alcohol study, I can't help but think that asking the booze industry for funding in the first place was a terrible idea. Some industries can be somewhat trusted to prove the safety of their own products because if their products are blatantly unsafe (e.g. Thalodomide) they will get sued and make a loss. I don't imagine anyone will manage to sue Heineken if it turns out that a study they founded misrepresented the costs and benefits of alcohol.
Call me cynical, but I don't expect that big booze would fund open-ended, objective studies on the effects of alcohol just out of a sense of moral responsibility. If they are forking over big bucks to fund some study, it is likely because they estimate the average payoff to be positive. I don't think that they have any private knowledge about the effects of alcohol to predict the outcome of the study. I can see some ways in which they might profit on average:
* By design, any such study will exclude the population most at risk, because it would be terrible unethical to go to a person with a history of substance abuse and tell them they should drink a few beers a week.
* "We found a small but significant benefit of moderate drinking for a certain population" will inevitably become: "Doctors say: booze good" because nuances will get lost.
* One of "Doctors say: booze bad/good" is old news. I can guess which outcome would generally get more reported on.
If humans were perfect Bayesians, any information would (on average) improve our predictions. Alas, humans are generally not. While treating arguments as soldiers is terrible, one should be aware that any nice, clean, neutral scientific finding can find itself badly distorted squeezed into some tank on the battle lines of public opinion a few weeks later. There are myriads of things to research, and there is something to be said for not doing a study on the positive character traits of Adolf Hitler (perhaps he was nice to his dogs or whatever) if one can already imagine the Modern Fascism Magazine headline "Hitler: not as bad as everyone says".
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Also, the first plot in that article links alcohol to tuberculosis?! Is this more a statistical finding (like a correlation between alcohol and low income or alcohol and unwanted pregnancies) or is there some organic mechanism of action proposed (weakening of the immune system, perhaps)?
It's "Juan Cambeiro," not "Juan Cambiero."
Thanks, fixed.
The thing I've noticed most about the profusion of plant-based fake meats is the almost total lack of information about their nutritional content. We get the usual % of several RDAs mandated by US law, and that's all. The generous people who've decided to sell me this stuff - taking up space in the meat section of my local grocery store - have not troubled to inform me whether any of these concoctions contain complete protein, or any of the nutrients vegans have trouble getting in adequate quantities.
Being cynical, I presume that if the information was *good*, and would tend to encourage me to buy their products, they'd be trumpeting it to the housetops. Of course I spend far less time consuming advertisements than normal people, so I may have missed one way they could try to inform prospective buyers. But why is there nothing useful on the packaging itself? I'm going to presume that a diet heavy in fake meat will be nutrient deficient in some way, unless and until I hear otherwise - from sources I consider reliable, at that.
Of course an unintelligently chosen diet lacking meat, substituting vegetable protein sources has the same risks. But handling this is easy - I can either follow a traditional low or no meat diet (with all of its traditional components), or I can consult available references written for the not-especially-educated consumer.
The other thing I notice is that they just about all contain rape seed (canola) oil. While I'm failing to find a reference to cite, I believe that intolerance of canola oil is more frequent than intolerance of just about any commonly consumed oil, particularly among asthmatics. Whether or not I'm right in my memories about the incidence numbers, intolerance of canola oil is definitely a thing. I live with a woman for whom canola oil is an exceedingly reliable emetic - if she consumes it, she barfs. And no, she does NOT have to know that the canola oil is present.
I saw no hint of either of these questions in a fast skim of the relevant article. In fact, it signaled its superficiality by asking whether or not these fake meats "were good for you", based on simple equations like "processed=bad" and "real meat=bad". Neither of those are true, as absolutes.
It did redeem itself somewhat by talking about the difficulties of doing diet comparisons. But at the same time it omitted the obvious - good for who? bad for who? in what quantities and proportions? Most people can probably eat a beyond beef burger with no ill effects. (Unless they respond badly even small quantities of canola oil). I suspect that someone who tries to live on little more than beyond beef burgers would probably get just as sick as someone who tried to live on little more than McDonald's hamburgers. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less - the producers haven't deigned to tell me enough to even start to predict that.
I'd like to see an article that gives me useful, actionable information. Meanwhile, no sale. When I want to eat vegetable based protein, I can choose among a large number of sources that won't taste *almost* like meat, and will have a better understood nutrient profile.
I don't think this is true? I've never had a problem figuring out what I need to know from nutrition labels.
> The generous people who've decided to sell me this stuff - taking up space in the meat section of my local grocery store - have not troubled to inform me whether any of these concoctions contain complete protein
The protein sources are required by US law to be listed in the ingredients, and you can deduce whether it's a complete protein. If it says the product uses, say, pea protein isolate, then all you need to do is look up the amino acid composition of pea protein.
> or any of the nutrients vegans have trouble getting in adequate quantities.
Protein, iron, B12, and zinc will be listed under Nutrition Facts. Not sure what you want that isn't listed.
Maybe it's different in different countries. I live in the Netherlands, and I just checked the nutrition facts for a Beyond burger on the site of my supermarket. It doesn't say anything about iron, vitamins or zinc, which probably means it doesn't have any B12 or B2.
> It doesn't say anything about iron, vitamins or zinc, which probably means it doesn't have any B12 or B2.
The Beyond Meat [0] and Impossible Foods [1] websites have this information and their burgers have similar amounts of these nutrients to comparable servings of ground beef:
Beyond Burger
iron: 4 mg (20% daily value)
zinc: 4.6mg (40% daily value)
B12: 2.4mcg (100% daily value)
B2 (riboflavin): not listed on the Beyond Burger page, but the Beyond Beef page says a 100 g serving (the Burger is 113 g) has 2.15 mg (165% daily value) [2]. The site says "Just like animal-derived ground meat and packaged burger patties, our Beyond Burger and Beyond Beef are both made from the same plant-based meat."
Impossible Burger
iron: 4.2 mg (25% daily value)
zinc: 50% daily value
B12: 130% daily value
B2 (riboflavin): 15% daily value
That's more iron, more or the same amount of B2, a little less or the same amount of zinc, and a little more or a little less B12 than an equivalent serving (4 oz) of beef [3] (I'm not sure about the right leanness to compare to). The iron might be approximately equivalent, since iron from non-animal sources is less bioavailable; studies seem to give wide ranges about how much less, but a value from somewhere in the middle would make them about even.
It's harder to find information about protein quality/amino acid profile. Beyond said in 2019 that the Beyond Burger had been updated to be a complete protein source (i.e., provides all 9 essential amino acids) [4]. I also found a study that said that for people ages 3+, real meat and Impossible are "excellent" protein sources and Beyond is a "good" protein source based on their respective DIAAS scores [5].
I looked up a beef product on a random Dutch supermarket website and it doesn't seem to list vitamins, so I'm thinking most sites just don't provide the full nutritional details [6].
[0] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
[1] https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018939274-What-are-the-nutrition-facts-for-Impossible-Beef-Made-From-Plants-
[2] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-CA/products/beyond-beef
[3] https://www.uhhospitals.org/health-information/health-and-wellness-library/article/nutritionfacts-v1/beef-ground-95-lean-meat--5-fat-raw-1-serving--4-oz-
[4] https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/11/18656653/beyond-meat-burger-upgrade-marbling-browning-complete-protein
[5] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/935087
[6] https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi4004/ah-rundergehakt
Thanks, that's good to know! It's strange though – I know it's not required to put all that on the package here, but it's not like it's forbidden either; so why would they leave it off, when it's such a big point in their favor?
"I presume that if the information was *good*, and would tend to encourage me to buy their products, they'd be trumpeting it to the housetops....But why is there nothing useful on the packaging itself?"
I've thought about that, not when it comes to impossible meat, but when it comes to other foods. I think you're right, but I can also think of a reason why a food company might NOT trumpet the good aspects of what they sell. I could be because in order to say they have x, y, z good things, they have to meet a rigorous test that it's too costly to meet. So they might have x, y, z good things, but it's too hard to prove the claim, so they don't say it.
I hope I'm being clear. I just woke up and am probably still a little groggy. (No, I'm actually just a sub-competent writer, but I'm going to blame the morning.)
Even if I'm right, that doesn't mean you're wrong. I stay away from impossible meat, even though I eat regular meat that's probably not too good for me. I'm just offering a possible reason why a vendor wouldn't tout the "good" aspects of their wares.
", I believe that intolerance of canola oil is more frequent than intolerance of just about any commonly consumed oil, "
This would seem reasonable, since natural canola produces an oil which is inedible. It did make a good industrial lubricant though.
Since you mentioned it, any cultivation novel recommendations?
Beware of Chicken is an excellent parody of the genre. A cultivator/self-insert has a near-death experience and says "Screw this, I'm going to become a farmer." And ironically, in deciding not to pursue power, he ends up becoming far more powerful than he could have expected.
It's a good parody because it knows and loves the genre it's parodying. All the mythic xianxia stuff is still going on *around* Jin's farm, the rest of the cast is busy hunting bandits and going to martial arts tournaments and uncovering long-lost secrets of cultivation, and Jin is just like "Have fun, don't forget to write, stop by if you want a home-cooked meal." It's basically a cultivation novel from the perspective of the old master who gives cryptic advice to the protagonist.
However, I must give the disclaimer to potential readers that everyone I know, including myself, has ended up dropping the story after a few months over the classic issue of "nothing happens". The start is probably worth checking out, but curb your expectations.
As a counterpoint, I still continue reading it. However, I agree that nothing happens. I probably only continue reading it because it's comfy and chapters are released slowly enough that it makes up a small percentage of what I read in any given week. It possibly is not great for binge reading after a certain point. It's slice of life, not adventure or anything particularly exciting (with some exceptions when the story briefly focuses on side characters).
I had tried reading this on Royal Road a while back and was very confused after the first chapter because it was a massive time skip and hard to follow. I didn't realize that the in-between chapters were removed when the author them into a book.
I went and got the book and really liked it.
Depends on what you're looking for. For a "classic," The Path Toward Heaven by Mao Ni is good - and as with all their novels, just stop at the obvious ending point, even though they keep writing words for too long after.
I LOVE cultivation novels, but so many are so bad. I think I've read all of the ones normally recommended — and dozens that only one or two people recommended too, on the off-chance — and... almost all of them are just awful.
(Note: I'm including "progression novels in general" in the below recommendations. Please recommend me anything not mentioned herein, too, despite my above claim — I've found a few of these just because one single person brought 'em up, e.g. Mark of the Fool!)
--------------------------
Exceptions (section 2) and sort-of exceptions (section 1), in rough order of ascending preference (with section 3 being "great enough to recommend for even the general reader"):
*****
* _A Thousand Li:_ Like the below, not bad. Also not as good, though. It's... pretty boring, at least after book 1, but it's at least not incompetent. Would be higher if books 2+ weren't so dull.
* _Reverend Insanity:_ Stilted (translated-from-Chinese) language, and typical Chinese weirdness (from my Western perspective, of course); I will admit I have taken a long break, so not sure I should include this or not; "gu" or whatever are just such a weird idea; but — such an unapologetically power-hungry and ruthless protagonist, so much of the *good* sort of weirdness in other cases... worth trying, perhaps.
* _Iron Prince:_ To be honest, I don't really like this one — the setting and the characters both are fairly bland to me, and predictable as heck — but a lot of people love it and it's... okay, if one of the two grabs you.
* _The Perfect Run:_ Well-written, and it's got lots of tension and mystery. I don't really like the comic-book-type MC and aspects of the setting, but the power variety is so cool anyway. Dropped it before finishing because I often do that (don't like endings) and I didn't really care enough about anyone in the book to want to finish regardless.
* _Kings of Paradise:_ Not bad; a little bleak for me, but ultimately... not bad. I enjoyed this one enough to finish without too many pauses; the characters are a step up from the previous few (and the next few, also). It would be a lot higher if it wasn't, eventually, just so dam' depressing.
Cool premise/setting, though.
* _Sufficiently Advanced Magic:_ Again, not bad. Again, didn't really looove it — took me a while to finish, and books I truly like tend to be consumed within a day; the characters are kind of bland, everyday sorts, and detail is sparse enough that I don't quite feel like I'm inhabiting the world, but... decent enough. Great magic/crafting system, even if maybe (maybe!) a tiny bit gimmicky.
A few linguistic errors, but the author got nauseated/nauseous right, so +1 for that.
* _Choice of Magic:_ Not great — real stereotypical/predictable characters and plot elements in a lot of cases, though *a few* others are pleasingly original; a few errors in language, though not many IIRC; protagonist isn't toooo interesting (bit of a Gary Stu) — but for all that, good-enough prose and characters, and cool enough premise, that I think I finished all but the final volume.
-------------
* _Reborn: Apocalypse:_ Something of a guilty pleasure, I enjoyed this enough to finish all extant volumes... so this is the line between "actually liked" and "sort-of liked", perhaps.
The language is stilted in that "non-native speaker" way that typically means "forget it", in my book, but it's also not really *error-filled*, and something about it was engaging enough that I could eventually look past that.
* _The First Binding:_ Occasional errors that irk me, and a NotW rip-off for sure (with the Gary-Stu-y protagonist that implies, although not quite as badly so as Kvothe) — but for all that, very enjoyable and I'm eager for the next. A cool setting and interesting-enough characters, and passable prose; a neat magic system and intriguing lore go a long way in my book.
* _A Testament of Steel:_ Fairly predictable in a lot of its elements — MC is a bit of a Gary Stu, in the usual ways of the genre, and many other developments are also exactly as you'd expect — and I listened on Audible, so not sure on the quality of the language use in text form; but still... the predictable bits are well-done, the world is interesting and original, and I like the characters well enough (though not especially: standard Hero And Friends, really).
...and I admit, the romance has got to me ("just kiss her, you fool!"). I'm excited for what happens next; got #2 immediately upon finishing #1.
(Can't really decide order between this one, the previous, and the next.)
* _Virtuous Sons:_ The setting and cultivation system are so good, man. It's definitely different, and a breath of fresh air — especially if you like (Greco-Roman) history and philosophy.
I'm only halfway through, but the writing style is a sort that never grabs me too hard — "sparse", you might call it — but it's good enough that I'm still going, and this may change.
* _Mark of the Fool:_ Only saw one person mention this ever, so it's sort of unknown (in my circles, at least) — but goddamn if I didn't love it! Likeable protagonist, interesting setting, satisfying progression, mysteries abound.
Again, this was an Audible purchase, so I can't vouch for the grammatical integrity of the original, but I'm thinking it's gotta be at least decent — the rest is too competent for it not to be, I'm betting...
* _Bastion:_ Amazing. I don't care if some elements are predictable — they're just the ones you've got to expect in this genre anyway ("I will triumph by being more determined and stubborn than anyone else!") — I really love the setting, the writing is good enough that I become absorbed, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
-------------
* Cradle: Amazing. I picked the first one up without knowing what I was getting into it; at first, I was totally uninterested — "what a weird setting and protagonist" — but by the end of the first few chapters, I was sneaking off to the bathroom at work to read *just a bit more.*
Laugh-out-loud moments, page-rippin' tension, excellent prose, cool characters, and a dizzying change in scope over and over when you least expect it ("wait... wait, THAT WASN'T THE LIMIT? NOT EVEN CLOSE?!" — don't want to give too many details and ruin the surprise, though!).
* _Mother of Learning:_ Amazing. Amazing. AMAZING. Also considered a sort of rationalist fic, so there's that too.
Such a cool premise, such satisfying progression, such fantastic mystery and intrigue — one of the few books, in any genre, that doesn't disappoint even a little on the reveal.
Can't say much more than that the only flaw I found in this work was that it ever ended; the setting, progression, mystery, characters, ending, everything — just one of my favorite things ever written.
*****
--------------------------
There are a lot of others frequently recommended, as I've mentioned — but most I just absolutely hate.
Mage Errant? Blech. Simplistic, and boring.
He Who Fights with Monsters? Lame, predictable Gary-Stu protagonist and plot, crap prose, irritatingly smug characters fêted instead of punished for idiocy...
Coiling Dragon? Low-IQ trash with stupid plot-holes.
Supreme Magus? Even lower-IQ trash and Gary Stu'd to hell.
Menocht Loop? Boring as hell, with a lame reveal and the most interesting part of the premise wasted.
Paragon of Destruction? ...great, actually; but frustrating because it will never be finished, so I cannot recommend.
Etc., etc....
...no offense to any fans of those, though! I'm just picky, heh; and I have a lower tolerance for some flaws than others.
(Final note: I haven't included a few on the list that had female protagonists, because I hated them but recognize that others might be okay with Action-Girl™-Is-Great-At-Everything-type tropes.)
--------------------------
As said, too: I would also appreciate recommendations, if our tastes seem similar!
Thanks. I've tried a few of these (edit:mostly stuff not on your list though) and like you, found the writing to often be terrible. The poor translations and crazy throughput don't help. I agree with your section 3. Cradle is amazing and mother of learning was pretty good too (I had to put it down because reading was interfering with my sleep 🙂)
Seconding Forge of Destiny (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/forge-of-destiny) as a well-written cultivation story. Some others I've enjoyed are Ave Xia Rem Y (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15193/ave-xia-rem-y), featuring a clever, patient protagonist who uses a mix of finesse and intrigue to try and overcome the "might makes right" attitudes in cultivator society, and When Immortal Ascension Fails, Time Travel to Try Again (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36597/when-immortal-ascension-fails-time-travel-to-try), a parody about a smart but reckless woman who got transported into a terrible cultivation story, got her ascension sabotaged the first time, but managed to send her soul back in time and is now try to use her future knowledge and experience to effectively speedrun the cultivation process.
In case someone tries and doesn't like these so much (as I didn't*, though they're certainly not bad by any means): I wouldn't call them typical of the genre. They're a bit "softer" and slower than the usual, I might say.
*(Well, okay, I haven't read the parody, and starting now.... I like it. But it's a parody, so probably fair to say it's not typical of the genre, right?!)
>I’m not in this one - my unsuitability to have food-related opinions is second only to @eigenrobot’s - but some of my friends are.
Why are you unsuitable to have food-related opinions?
I think he has said before he isn’t particularly into food.
I'm the same, and it's perhaps the only topic I near-audibly groan in my mind when it's brought up, mostly because I see it as similar to sleeping (a bodily necessity for which it's uncommon but not unusual to make a hobby of pursuing specifics or variety [eg camping or luxury hotel travel]), but almost anyone who talks about it for longer than a minute seems to see the *hobby* as what they think should be a near-universal interest.
With most interests I see something akin to "others should be interested in listening to me talk about it, and I will be interested in listening to them in exchange", which I personally find to be a decent attitude for everyone to have and not annoying at all (epistemic status: sincere), but with food in particular it's usually "I am assuming others are interested and personally partake in the hobby of seeking out new ways of experiencing it", despite me sharing the interest about as much as a chronic vertigo patient shares an interest in theme parks.
(I'm actually somewhat OK with *discourse* on the subject similar to this magazine; it's mostly *social talk* on it that I'm not fond of, possibly because of this unspoken expectation that the talk be two-way and personal instead of merely about ideas)
Camping and luxury hotel travel aren't really about the sleeping, I'd say; that's sort of like saying "[...] some people make a hobby of sweating and urinating copiously (e.g., long-distance runners) [...]".
Like, yes, okay, those things *are* involved, but are incidental; so too is "sleeping in a new place" incidental to the stuff people usually seem to like about camping or travel. Contra your comparison: it seems very, very unusual to make sleeping a hobby, to my mind...
...not that this is important to your point or anything...
Honestly many long-distance runners and triathletes I know would chuckle quite a bit at that comparison... a friend of a friend once made a presentation on long-distance running for a short off-topic talk at his job and called it "How to suffer".
Not sure I'd appreciate being introduced as a writer by the epithet "my ex", no matter its informational accuracy. Maybe this person agreed beforhand though and doesn't mind.
Fair enough, I took it as a measure of journalistic disclosure like when an author notes that the company he's criticizing he worked for in the past/owns the paper that employs him, etc. Maybe putting after the name (disclosure, this is my ex-partner) would be a better framing?
Honestly, being Scott's ex is evidence of good character from where I sit; one cannot be Scott's ex without first being Scott's girlfriend, after all. Certainly, I've found myself thinking "she's Scott's ex, so clearly she's not *all* bad" on a couple of occasions.
"They," last time I head their writings.
Didn't actually know that.
I refuse to use singular "they", but if I remember and if Ozymandias is actually present I'll avoid pronouns.
I didn't read "Beyond Staple Grains" as a "Why good thing bad" article at all? Just seemed like a "How good thing can be improved upon further".
I agree. The characterization seemed somewhat sensationalistic.
I exhibit a trauma response whenever I see the words eigenrobot and food juxtaposed
https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/2/read-this-not-that-the-hidden-cost-of-nutrition-misinformation/17ea78670f-1678126186/guynet.jpg
https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/1/the-illogic-of-nuclear-escalation/f497967c97-1678126162/asterisk_kaplan-03_outline.svg
https://asteriskmag.com/media/pages/issues/1/why-isn-t-the-whole-world-rich/279c14f000-1678126167/asterisk_volrath-01_outline.svg
The colors used on graphs are almost identical when there's no functional need for it, and the pie chart has actual color gradients (a specific color matching a specific meaning is the entire point! a gradient destroys that simple 1-to-1 correspondence!), and the pie chart has an awkward composition in general.
They really suffer from wild graphic designers running amok.
Wow wow wow. Those are bad!
Seconded... Wow... Someone really likes red to an unhealthy degree.
Is it just me or is that doughnut chart really difficult to interpret even aside from its color issues?
No, me too, that is what I meant by "has an awkward composition in general".
I recommend using Ctrl-H instead of Ctrl-F, which includes "replace", which includes "replace all".
Well, perhaps not in web pages, but in Microsoft documents.
It looks like the hyperlink that is supposed to point to the Eukaryote Writes blog instead points (again) to the "What I Won't Eat" article.
Thanks, fixed.
The cultivated meat article was a little less detailed than I was hoping, but still an interesting read. I think at the end of it, I'm perhaps slightly more optimistic in the long-term odds, but my thoughts on the short to medium term (5-10, maybe even 20 years) hasn't shifted much.
This issue of Asterisk seems like an interesting read, especially since it's centered around food-related topics. I'm particularly curious about the article on the downsides of the Green Revolution and how policymakers are trying to mitigate them. It's always important to consider the unintended consequences of technological advancements, especially when it comes to our food systems. I'm also intrigued by the article on cultivated meat and whether it will be able to compete with traditional meat on price. It's exciting to think about the potential for animal-cruelty-free meat, but it's also important to consider the economic viability of this technology. Overall, I'm looking forward to reading this issue of Asterisk and learning more about these important topics.
The article on the "downsides of the green revolution" is fantastic; because it isn't about that at all.
It's more like: "We need green revolution round 2 to get similar yield performance from more crops for more people to enjoy balance diets."
Maybe the Asterisk-webmasters are reading here (i didn't reach anyone by email):
Your webserver blocks HTTP-clients with amd64 in the User-Agent header (which is quite annoying, since my browsers User-Agent contains this):
` ` `
$ curl -H 'User-Agent: amd64' -I https://asteriskmag.com
HTTP/2 403
date: Wed, 08 Mar 2023 19:34:15 GMT
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-content-type-options: nosniff
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q050=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q046=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q043=":443"; ma=2592000, quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="43,46"
$ curl -H 'User-Agent: something-else' -I https://asteriskmag.com
HTTP/2 200
x-powered-by: PHP/8.1.16
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
date: Wed, 08 Mar 2023 19:34:34 GMT
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-content-type-options: nosniff
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q050=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q046=":443"; ma=2592000, h3-Q043=":443"; ma=2592000, quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="43,46"
` ` `
Thanks for flagging. We'll look into it.
We've got an e-mail out to our hosting server support. Do you mind saying what browser you're using?
Our support staff were also curious about your IP. If you'd like us to keep looking, e-mail: jake@asteriskmag.com
That oral rehydration therapy article gave me the same sort of swelling of humanist pride as child mortality graphs do. Behold the glory and splendour of humanity!
That nuclear winter/volcano interview freaked me out a little bit. 15 to 20 percent chance per century of VEI-7 event, which the interviewee claims would cause a 5-20 percent crop loss? That's much higher than I would have thought. We are not adequately prepared for something like that, and it's totally outside of our control, unlike nuclear winter. That would fuck the globe up in a hurry.
I am that interviewee, if it helps.
I'm afraid the 15-20% per century appears to be accurate for VEI-7s, with around 97 such eruptions over the last 60,000 years, and some evidence we are in a period of higher activity at the moment. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220817135557.htm
On top of that we have nuclear winters, which unfortunately are not disproven and seem solidly likely in a nuclear exchange. Both could cause up to 80% plus crop losses if we don't take immediate action, which would dwarf anything we have seen since agriculture began.
The good news is that we can take action, and even a VEI-8 eruption could be survivable by civilization for the first time in our history. That's what ALLFED is trying to work on, and while the challenge is huge it appears tractable.
Thanks for the reply. Not doing a lot to assuage my fears though!
Some follow-ups:
1. Is your organization more in the research part of this issue, or do you have actual contingency policy plans being created for the logistics of transporting/building the infrastructure to grow the right food?
2. Does ALLFED have regular communications with government decisions makers? As in, if something like this were to happen, are you confident your organization could be consulted immediately to make policy recommendations to help stave off that 80% figure? It doesn't sound like there's much time to waste to avoid total catastrophe in these scenarios.
3. You give an up to 80% figure here, with potentially a minimum of 5% if quick action is taken, and I assume, if the eruption were to be a minor VEI 7 versus a major VEI 7. Do you have an expected average for this number? This must be a very challenging thing to estimate, but the different is wide, and terrifying.
4. How localized would you expect the impacts of a VEI 7 to be? If the total loss is something between 5-20%, are you expecting almost 0% in some areas and closer to 90% in others? I guess, how local/global are temperature impacts from an eruption?
5. Somewhat unrelated, but has your group ever considered the effects of a major solar flare? Every since reading about the Carrington Event solar flare in the 1860s that's another similar thing I've worried about occurring now, with potential impacts on food distribution and production if it were to occur today, though not really in the same way.
This is a pretty fascinating extreme civilizational risk that I've not heard anything about before, so I'm glad someone is working on it!
Hi, all of these are great questions and cut quickly to a lot of the issues we consider. As a quick answer:
1: We do both, and now the research has advanced to the point where we can start to give actionable advice that we have confidence in we are starting to develop preparedness and response plans.
2. We do talk with governments, though only a few to date, and the plans are being considered in some cases (without going into details) and that hopefully should expand over time as countries see others taking action pre disaster. Post disaster we have considered this, and our own efforts would be a small part of the picture we hope that word would spread, but the more we do in advance the more likely that is.
3. The 80%+ figure is a severe event with no response. VEI 7s would be more like 5-20% losses globally, but that's still an unprecedented shock for over a century. Xia et al. 2022 has figures based on crop losses in each nuclear winter band, but that does assume very little is done to respond. We think more responses are possible. https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/xi08000i.html
4. Such events are global, though island nations, the tropics and areas that are hot would do better on average due to their location. Australia and New Zealand for example will be less hit than Russia and the United States.
5. Yes! We actually consider many different risks beyond abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios and losing agricultural complexity/industry would also be deeply catastrophic. The original Asterisk piece was actually going to include this, but it's so complex it would have doubled the length and created a bit of confusion with two topics. While there is debate on how bad a solar flare would be, anything that disrupts communications, electricity or industry on a large scale would be seriously problematic for agriculture, and we need that ag complexity to live.
It's all very fascinating, which is why I switched from a life of private sector consulting to thinking about these tail risks to the food system, and the interesting thing is just how much agency we might have if we plan and act effectively. Like always, for people who are interested there are job opportunities available, we need a variety of skills, and consider donating if you wish (as well as to other EA causes).
According to Bean over on Naval Gazing/DSL, nuclear winter very much *has* been disproven and the only people still touting it are cranks. It might be nice for you two to debate each other.
To be fair Bean raises some excellent points, and it is not certain what magnitudes nuclear winter will reach from even a defined conflict, like India/Pakistan or Russia/NATO. There's a lot of detail in all this, such as the time of year of the conflict (and thus climatic conditions, which are really important in lofting, Coupe 2019 does better modelling with this), fuel loads, counterforce/countervalue targeting, weapons used etc, and there's a lot of fair debate there.
By saying not disproven here, I'm saying that there remains a seriously credible channel -> firestorms can be caused by nuclear weapons, and are highly probable for detonations of large weapons over cities -> soot from those firestorms can be lofted into the stratosphere (very different to wildfires and oil well fires, where some quite frankly poor predictions have been made in the past, it's fair to raise that), where it can persist for at least a year, probably much longer -> enough detonations equals several degrees of cooling -> this would be devasting for agriculture.
I'm an agricultural economist, and I leave the detailed debates here to others with technical expertise, but there is a risk that skepticism over the possibility of 150 Tg scenarios (the largest typically studied) bleeds into thinking that any shock is impossible, and losing a few degrees implies conditions potentially worse than Tambora and the year without a summer. 20-30 Tg is plenty to cause a really massive climate shock, on top of the challenges of the direct and targeted damage of the conflict itself.
The carnivore diet is nutrition misinformation?
Does that mean in three years time the department of energy will endose it and the NYT will write sympathetic articles about it without referencing their previous hostility towards it?
It seems like there is no way to comment on the Asterisk articles, so I will just put my thoughts here instead.
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Zvi observed [0] that the headlines of media are generally particularly unreliable. Unfortunately, this also seems to be the case here. The article "Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc" mentions zinc only in the headline. More worrisome, "Feeding the World Without Sunlight" talks about handling the impact of _reduced_ sunlight (and thus lower temperatures), not trying to growing food plants in artificial light for eight billions.
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With regard to the NIH alcohol study, I can't help but think that asking the booze industry for funding in the first place was a terrible idea. Some industries can be somewhat trusted to prove the safety of their own products because if their products are blatantly unsafe (e.g. Thalodomide) they will get sued and make a loss. I don't imagine anyone will manage to sue Heineken if it turns out that a study they founded misrepresented the costs and benefits of alcohol.
Call me cynical, but I don't expect that big booze would fund open-ended, objective studies on the effects of alcohol just out of a sense of moral responsibility. If they are forking over big bucks to fund some study, it is likely because they estimate the average payoff to be positive. I don't think that they have any private knowledge about the effects of alcohol to predict the outcome of the study. I can see some ways in which they might profit on average:
* By design, any such study will exclude the population most at risk, because it would be terrible unethical to go to a person with a history of substance abuse and tell them they should drink a few beers a week.
* "We found a small but significant benefit of moderate drinking for a certain population" will inevitably become: "Doctors say: booze good" because nuances will get lost.
* One of "Doctors say: booze bad/good" is old news. I can guess which outcome would generally get more reported on.
If humans were perfect Bayesians, any information would (on average) improve our predictions. Alas, humans are generally not. While treating arguments as soldiers is terrible, one should be aware that any nice, clean, neutral scientific finding can find itself badly distorted squeezed into some tank on the battle lines of public opinion a few weeks later. There are myriads of things to research, and there is something to be said for not doing a study on the positive character traits of Adolf Hitler (perhaps he was nice to his dogs or whatever) if one can already imagine the Modern Fascism Magazine headline "Hitler: not as bad as everyone says".
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Also, the first plot in that article links alcohol to tuberculosis?! Is this more a statistical finding (like a correlation between alcohol and low income or alcohol and unwanted pregnancies) or is there some organic mechanism of action proposed (weakening of the immune system, perhaps)?
[0] https://thezvi.substack.com/p/how-to-bounded-distrust