General Politics Three: But what is left/right?

[EvaDK]

DeSantis receiving campaign donations by the meat industry perhaps? What we would call corruption in my part of the World?

 

[Lexicus]

Ron DeSantis bans 'global elite' lab-grown meat​

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has banned lab-grown meat, saying he will "save our beef" from the "global elite" and its "authoritarian plans".

"Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs," Mr DeSantis said in a statement.

The first-in-the-nation law prohibits anyone from selling or distributing lab-grown meat in Florida.

Similar efforts are under way in Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee.

Lab-grown or "cultivated" meat was first cleared for consumption in the US in 2022.

The process of making cultivated meat involves extracting cells from an animal, which are then fed with nutrients such as proteins, sugars and fats. The end product is genetically indistinguishable from traditionally produced meat.

Studies have suggested that eating cultivated meat can cut carbon emissions and water usage, and free up land for nature, compared to eating traditionally produced meat.

The World Economic Forum has for years touted lab-grown meat as an efficient and environmentally-friendly way to produce food, and feed a rapidly growing global population. It has also promoted insect farming as a "credible and alternative protein source".

Lobbyists for edible insects have launched a campaign asking the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to add mealworms, crickets protein powder and other insect products to the agency's database of safe ingredients.

These unconventional food sources have become fodder for the US culture wars. Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made headlines two years ago after she insinuated the government was monitoring whether Americans were eating fake meat grown in a petri dish.

At an event on Wednesday announcing the new law, Mr DeSantis said he was "fighting against an ideology that ultimately wants to eliminate meat production in the US and around the globe".

"In the state of Florida we've put down the marker very clearly; we stand with agriculture. We stand with the cattle ranchers," he said.

Florida's commissioner of agriculture Wilton Simpson applauded the legislation as a "tremendous step in the right direction".

"Florida is taking a tremendous step in the right direction by signing first-in-the-nation legislation banning lab-grown meat," Mr Simpson said.

But the move was also supported by an unlikely supporter of Mr DeSantis, Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. It "pains me deeply" to agree with Mr DeSantis, Mr Fetterman wrote on X, "but I co-sign this".

Good Meat, a cultivated meat company which says it is the first in the world to sell lab-grown meat, wrote on X it was "disappointed" by the new Florida law.

"In a state that purportedly prides itself on being a land of freedom and individual liberty, its government is now telling consumers what meat they can or cannot purchase," it said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68947766

I'm pretty sure the Global Elite wants me to eat Tyson meat products until I attain the physique of a beach ball

 

[Farm Boy]

Why are we privileging this minority? We can find “minority” any which way.

Seeing as I can't find a single measurable life outcome that's commonly used that doesn't split the same way along this line means I've found a non spurious relationship, in all likelihood. Which means it's a line to use even if it's not a line you want to work on. It does stuff.

 

[Farm Boy]

But you do agree that the politics of the majority justifies removing their representation.

Clearly not. I have no argument to make about why a line that demarks relative disadvantage should be used to decrease representation rights in favor of those who have measurably preferable outcomes on every metric.

 

[Hygro]

Seeing as I can't find a single measurable life outcome that's commonly used that doesn't split the same way along this line means I've found a non spurious relationship, in all likelihood. Which means it's a line to use even if it's not a line you want to work on. It does stuff.

And then other people with those things have lower voting power by geography.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Ron DeSantis, champion of the free market.

This part sounds deranged. It's like something you'd expect to read in an Onion article:

Whether de Santis actually believes in that or not, he's tapping into a real belief held by real people.

I don't like the idea of lab-grown meat myself, and I don't like the way it's being pushed though I can understand and appreciate the reasons behind it, but you have a very significant part of the populace that is paranoid about some absurd 'global elite' hell-bent on upturning the natural order of things, and the way the lab-grown meat fans go about their preaching makes it even worse (though it was pretty bad to begin with) so it becomes another issue for an enterprising Republican to capitalise on

 

[Farm Boy]

And then other people with those things have lower voting power by geography.

Yes. Because one relationship is true does not mean it is the only relationship.

 

[Hygro]

people who think a global elite has our eating habits boxed in has

A) not noticed our food selection and dietary possibilities / freedom have been only increasing

B) never lived where your next door neighbor kills a pig every 4am on a Wednesday inside city limits

 

[Gorbles]

Whether de Santis actually believes in that or not, he's tapping into a real belief held by real people.

I don't like the idea of lab-grown meat myself, and I don't like the way it's being pushed though I can understand and appreciate the reasons behind it, but you have a very significant part of the populace that is paranoid about some absurd 'global elite' hell-bent on upturning the natural order of things, and the way the lab-grown meat fans go about their preaching makes it even worse (though it was pretty bad to begin with) so it becomes another issue for an enterprising Republican to capitalise on

I mean "the natural order of things" should also be in quotes, because we contravene that on the regular, across a wide range of things. Intervening to support parents through pregnancy, labour and childbirth? Upturning the natural order of things. Lowering levels of dangerous metals in various drinking waters? Upturning the natural order.

Like I could go on, but I usually stop at the labour and childbirth one (because the statistics when looking at history, before we developed ways to help with this, were really quite drastically terrible).

We as humanity have defined ourselves by upturning the "natural order". I don't see why unhinged opposition to lab-grown meat, valid criticisms of the industry under our favourite capitalistic hellscape aside, should be tolerated as a real belief held by real people insofar that I recognise things like "vaccine microchip 5G" stuff is also real for the people who believe in it.

The fact that something is real, or believed in, has little bearing on others regarding it as deranged or not.

 

[Arakhor]

There are very many diehard fandoms which seem to want to stop you becoming a fan too. This is not even slightly unusual at this point.

 

[Farm Boy]

people who think a global elite has our eating habits boxed in has

A) not noticed our food selection and dietary possibilities / freedom have been only increasing

B) never lived where your next door neighbor kills a pig every 4am on a Wednesday inside city limits

Have to be careful about that. It's illegal without the permits. Regulations, and all.

I didn't grow up in a food desert, my kid is. I haven't moved. He goes to school in the same building his grandfather did. Now, I have space. I could garden without needing to make boxes to hang under the windows. But it's one more thing. I lost this specific task in the efficiency reduction that came from solo instead of duo.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I mean "the natural order of things" should also be in quotes, because we contravene that on the regular, across a wide range of things. Intervening to support parents through pregnancy, labour and childbirth? Upturning the natural order of things. Lowering levels of dangerous metals in various drinking waters? Upturning the natural order.

Like I could go on, but I usually stop at the labour and childbirth one (because the statistics when looking at history, before we developed ways to help with this, were really quite drastically terrible).

We as humanity have defined ourselves by upturning the "natural order". I don't see why unhinged opposition to lab-grown meat, valid criticisms of the industry under our favourite capitalistic hellscape aside, should be tolerated as a real belief held by real people insofar that I recognise things like "vaccine microchip 5G" stuff is also real for the people who believe in it.

The fact that something is real, or believed in, has little bearing on others regarding it as deranged or not.

Yes, I intended to put it in quotes too but it was only your reply that made me notice I didn't.

The point I was making about a 'real belief' is that it's something that exists independently of de Santis' actions and beliefs, and de Santis is simply capitalising on those real beliefs (which lead to real people putting in real votes).

On the topic of the 'natural order of things', I acknowledge very readily that it is only a transient illusion, but I still stick to my conception of the 'natural order of things', and it's going to need a real effort before someone can convince me to substitute 'natural' (again those quotes) meat for lab-grown; it's one's natural inertia, and if you're bad at messaging you just end pushing the other way

 

[EgonSpengler]

Whether de Santis actually believes in that or not, he's tapping into a real belief held by real people.

You say 'tapping into', I say 'preying upon.' Tomayto, tomahto.

[...]you have a very significant part of the populace that is paranoid about some absurd 'global elite' hell-bent on upturning the natural order of things

Yes, and I have some sympathy for the regular people who've been duped and miseducated and taken advantage of by people like DeSantis. It's unfortunate that we can be affected by their hysteria and madness, even if we can also try to be understanding and try not to blame them too much.

(Your use of the phrase 'tapping into' conjured a distant memory from one of the horror comics I read as a kid. I can't remember the story, but it ended with our unfortunate hero hanging upside-down behind the bar in a vampire speakeasy with a tap in his neck.)

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Yes, and I have some sympathy for the regular people who've been duped and miseducated and taken advantage of by people like DeSantis.

I don't agree with the 'preying on' and 'taken advantage of' turns of phrases, because I don't believe de Santis is egging on the pushback against lab-grown meat as a means to some end of his own (though if it's true that he's being funded by Big Beef that puts a different complexion on matters), or that the anti-lab-grown-meat crowd is being swindled out of something; what I see happening is the plain old scenario of an enterprising political seizing on an organic issue (regardless of the rationality and education of the people pushing said issue, because that's what masses are) that was already in the air and capitalising on it.

There's a very lengthy discussion on why the issue is there in the first place: the utter bipolarisation of American politics, the looming culture war, mistrust of the 'science' and industry's inextricable links to it, heightened paranoia... and it goes on and on, but what I'm saying is that is less a bunch of scummy politicians swooping on an unsuspecting prey or playing them like puppets, and more a case of silly people getting what they're asking for.

To clarify once again (because I end up writing too much while saying too little) the problem is not the evil Republicans but the will of the masses. De Santis is tilting at windmills not because he sees them as giants but because the masses do, and no amount of writing a De Quixote of De Santis is going to disabuse the masses of their myopia, but in fact will only make the matter worse.

And to end on the issue of lab-grown meat, I don't like it, but I think banning it is stupid (though I can understand the rationale behind even that too). I don't know what laws you have regarding that in the US, but my preferred solution would be that lab-grown meat should be labelled as such and there should be a penalty for passing it off as 'natural' meat. Everyone one has the right to know what they're eating, and besides this would go a long way in consoling people's paranoid fears of being forced to eat unnaturals designed by the global elite to turn them into zombies or 5G carriers or something

 

[Lexicus]

The point I was making about a 'real belief' is that it's something that exists independently of de Santis' actions and beliefs, and de Santis is simply capitalising on those real beliefs (which lead to real people putting in real votes).

This belief is not really something that exists without lunatic right-wing propaganda though. True, DeSantis is fairly far downstream from the inner workings of the right-wing propaganda machine.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

This belief is not really something that exists without lunatic right-wing propaganda though.

But it is sustained by the reaction and counter-rhetoric. The harder you react against it the surer they become of their beliefs. From what little I've seen of US politics, it looks like this too will become a tiresome culture war issue with each side getting more entrenched in their positions.

 

[Lexicus]

But it is sustained by the reaction and counter-rhetoric. The harder you react against it the surer they become of their beliefs. From what little I've seen of US politics, it looks like this too will become a tiresome culture war issue with each side getting more entrenched in their positions.

My plan is to just point and laugh at people who are like "I will never eat a bug!" while eating shrimp and lobster.

I myself have no strong opinion about lab-grown meat, I guess I think it would be cool if they can make something that tastes as good as bacon without killing any pigs to do it, but I'm skeptical that this is truly possible.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

‘Vote jihad’: As Modi raises anti-Muslim India election pitch, what’s next?

As the campaign targeting of Muslims becomes more direct and shrill, experts fear Modi’s words could encourage violence.

www.aljazeera.com

In a campaign speech last week, Modi equated the Muslim community with “infiltrators” and described them as “those who have more children”, pandering to a popular Hindu majoritarian trope that Muslims produce more children, with the aim of eventually outnumbering Hindus in India. In reality, Muslims constitute less than 15 percent of the national population, and government data shows their fertility rate is going down faster than that of Hindus and other major religious groups.
Those comments set off a political row, inviting sharp criticism from the opposition and sections of civil society. Nearly 20,000 citizens wrote to the Election Commission of India to act against the accusations of hate speech by Modi.
Yet, two days later, on 23 April, Modi doubled down on his comments claiming a conspiracy hatched by the Congress — the country’s principal opposition party — and Muslims to steal Hindu wealth.
“I presented the truth before the nation that the Congress has hatched a deep conspiracy to snatch your property and distribute it among their special favourites,” he said, in reference to Muslims.
Then, on April 30, the BJP published an animated campaign video on Instagram, showing stereotypical portrayals of violent and greedy Muslim male raiders attacking medieval India and plundering her wealth, before Modi arrives to rescue the nation. The video again peddled the PM’s assertions that that the Congress, if elected, will distribute Hindu wealth and property among Muslims.

I know India is too far gone down the fascist route to make a difference, but I would love to see Modi suddenly cease to exist

 

[EgonSpengler]

I don't agree with the 'preying on' and 'taken advantage of' turns of phrases, because I don't believe de Santis is egging on the pushback against lab-grown meat as a means to some end of his own (though if it's true that he's being funded by Big Beef that puts a different complexion on matters), or that the anti-lab-grown-meat crowd is being swindled out of something; what I see happening is the plain old scenario of an enterprising political seizing on an organic issue (regardless of the rationality and education of the people pushing said issue, because that's what masses are) that was already in the air and capitalising on it.

There's a very lengthy discussion on why the issue is there in the first place: the utter bipolarisation of American politics, the looming culture war, mistrust of the 'science' and industry's inextricable links to it, heightened paranoia... and it goes on and on, but what I'm saying is that is less a bunch of scummy politicians swooping on an unsuspecting prey or playing them like puppets, and more a case of silly people getting what they're asking for.

To clarify once again (because I end up writing too much while saying too little) the problem is not the evil Republicans but the will of the masses. De Santis is tilting at windmills not because he sees them as giants but because the masses do, and no amount of writing a De Quixote of De Santis is going to disabuse the masses of their myopia, but in fact will only make the matter worse.

And to end on the issue of lab-grown meat, I don't like it, but I think banning it is stupid (though I can understand the rationale behind even that too). I don't know what laws you have regarding that in the US, but my preferred solution would be that lab-grown meat should be labelled as such and there should be a penalty for passing it off as 'natural' meat. Everyone one has the right to know what they're eating, and besides this would go a long way in consoling people's paranoid fears of being forced to eat unnaturals designed by the global elite to turn them into zombies or 5G carriers or something

He uses the term "global elite", which is a right-wing dogwhistle here, invoking xenophobia, "America First", and stoking fears of invasion and control by foreign powers. Dean Black, a Republican in the Florida House of Representatives, who co-sponsored the bill, said that he's worried that America's meat industry could be contained in a single factory, which could then be hit by a missile. Dean Black is a cattle-rancher, btw.

 

[Crezth]

Debating how to reconfigure the EC while fascist militia plan to storm the election halls in November and the police are scrambling to shoot the voters failing the Democratic Party in the face, well it’s a little like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. By all means continue. Full steam ahead! The economy is good! Well except for all those vital characteristics. But I’ll tell ya, we’ve made a killing in fake MovieTickets.com listings.