[FRIAM] capitalism vs. individualism

[glen∈ℂ]

Well, during my chemotherapy and years of maintenance doses of obinutuzumab, red meat was the only thing that sated me. Prior to my diagnosis and after I stopped taking the drug, I do well on a mostly plant diet, eating meat once or twice per week. That personal experience convinced me of what nutritionists have been telling us for years, that meat *is* an efficient way to deliver some nutrients. The (arguably few) ranchers I've talked to through Utah State Univ. and through the locals who buy whole cows and pigs every year, tend to talk about land use efficiency more than nutritional density. And, again, I believe fairly strongly in the idea that distributed systems can solve some problems better and faster than centralized systems. So, the ranchers probably *can* solve some of the problems better than the State or Federal governments (leaving out counties and cities). But arguing that *all* government is bad/inefficient is just more stupid rhetoric.

As for the light bulbs, the purpose of the *machine* is to control the flow of energy. The heat from your bulbs is *lost* energy, even if you manage to harvest some fraction of that loss, it's still a worse design for a machine. Now, if you designed your house as a living ecosystem, with a "circle of life/energy", then I might buy the idea that the bulb is one organelle in a larger organism. ... But that's a high hurdle to get over.

On 11/10/19 8:57 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> I was musing the other day on the amount of food waste between harvest and eating and wondering vaguely if meat isn't a more efficient way to bring plants to table than we give it credit for.  In the same way that I wonder about these claims that my lightbulbs are saving energy when they give off less heat ...during the winter?  Aren't those nice warm incandescent lightbulbs helping to heat my house?
> 
> I don't share your more general implication that government should leave off thinking about this stuff and leave the cattlemen to solve it on their own.  That leads back to our conversation ofn Grapes of Wrath.