Significant canines can exist even in herbivores, such as with orangutans.

Eat meat if you want, I do, but using a slightly abnormal set of teeth as an argument is ridiculous, particularly as human teeth, even with a more prominent canine, are far from being an optimal setup for a carnivore. Take a look in a dog or cat's mouth to see what that looks like. We're evolved to be omnivores, which puts us in the enviable position of having more freedom in using our intelligence to decide what we eat.

I see no reason metahumanity wouldn't have the same range of choices.

Yeah, you're right, killing billions of people is better for our society than modifying our eating habits...

Nevermind the benefits of specialisation of labour, and increase service and customer bases ...

I wouldn't give her too much grief about this. She might bite.

My point is that there are plenty of herbivores with prominent canines (fangs), including orangutans, which is why I linked to a picture of an orangutan skull in my previous post. If you'd look at it, you'd notice that its canines project beyond the flat teeth. I suppose it's possible that your canines are even more prominent than theirs, but I'd be surprised.

To tie this back into Shadowrun, the reason orangutans have sizable canines is for fighting, not for eating. I always assumed orks and trolls had sizable canines for the same reason, even if they didn't make use of it in the Shadowrun setting. Note, for example, that in the SR3 metahumanity description, the troll describes himself as having 'tusks' [SR3 core, page 50]. Tusks in herbivores (elephant) have been known to happen.

Classical error here:

A lot of the land used to raise lifestock won't be useful for raising crops. Either the ground is too poor, too salty or too remote.

I can't see the fuel problem, grain does not walk to the foodplant either and what it might cost less in transport it costs more in sowing and care.

Water is basically a closed system, goes in at one end, comes out with bio-degradable add-ons on the other.

The planet minus a couple billion would actually have negligible effect on global society as a whole, aside from the media sqawking of course. It would in no way affect the economy enough to negate the benefits of specialization of labour.

Further, regardless of whether society as a whole eats meat or soy, overpopulation will eventually bring us as a species to a place where the planet's resources cannot sustain the extant population. A lot of other species will go extinct first, but it will happen. Whether the population eats meat or soy will be irrelevent at that point, and switching to an all-soy diet is not a solution to the problem. It only postpones (and arguably insures) the inevitable.

Please don't assume a classical error, though:

The land that cannot grow human-quality foods is only a portion of the land devoted to livestock. Leaving this land free is better for the ecology (delays extinctions), but it could be developed for other uses.

However, since livestock consumes so much food (relative to the calories it delivers), the portion of land that IS capable of growing human crops could be used to vastly improve the amount of food available.

It may cost gasoline to ship grain. But it costs more gasoline to ship grain to the cows and then the cows to us. The gallons/calorie for livestock is MUCH higher than for grains and beans. Most livestock is now farm-fed. My argument does not really include free-range livestock - in fact, I encourage such activity (because I KNOW that free-range buffallo is awesome)

Finally, on a global scale there is a closed water-cycle. Locally, there is not. Water that evaporates off Albertan crops is gotten from the Albertan water-table. However, the rain generated only partially falls back into the water table. This is one reason why our water table is shriking, because we suck it out (and evaporate it) faster than it rains back in. It's not a problem now, because the water seems endless. But when it gets tight, it will only regenerate as quickly as it rains.

This really only applies to endotherms. Bugs have a very, very favorable exchange rate and grow at a great speed. I still can't fathom why beetles and catepillars aren't a more popular protein source in this country.

A good example of this is Japan, where in RL land is so expensive that the farmer power blocks are very powerful and can keep the prices way up becuase they limit imports from elsewhere. A few years ago they had a rice shortage and had to allow rice to be imported form the US. Even with the cost of shipping and the extra tarriffs the government put in place the US rice was still much cheaper than home grown Japanese rice with its massively inflated price.

They are still not importing US beef and all claims of 'protecting' Japanese population form Mad cow disease are pretty poor. There have been three case of cows in the US with Mad cow, and two of those could be traced back to Canada. In the same time there have been 29 cases of Mad Cow disease in Japanese cattle. clearly there is a greater risk from Japanese beef BUT they are just protecting the Japanese industry from the cheaper American beef. it has nothing to do with health issues.

Agriculture is the only American industry that has had a positive surplus in regards to imports/exports for two hundred years straight. The US consumes far less than it produces. I think it's safe to assume Canada is in a similar position.

One US can feed the world without changing one bit of what food people int he US eat. THe us can grown enough food, to do this, and can do so for longer than the world will have oil.

Japan can't feed it's self. It has been importing food for a long time now. THis was a key reason they lost world war 2.

AmaZonia has less farm land in future.THe plants growwing back are not cause some human friendly plot. It was done by somethings that could care less about metahumans.

I question this statement. Do you have any justification for it?

Of course. But giving it away isn't the same as getting it where it should be. I'll give you an example.

I have a car worth $500 here in DC. I'm moving and I don't want the car any more. I am not legally allowed to just leave it around, so I can sell it to some place that'll do the inspections, change the tags, etc. and after getting paid $100 for the car, I'll still pay $20 to dump it. However if I leave it on the street, I'll get a bill for $200 from the state.

You live in California and could use a car. I say "hey, nice deal, I'll give you the car, you just have to come and pick it up". You now have a $500 car in DC. It'll cost $400 for a plane ticket over, and $300 in gas and food to drive it back to DC. It's $800 to have it loaded on a truck and delivered. So you're now paying $700-800 for a $500 car. However if you don't take it, *I* get charged money.

See the problem? It costs more to ship it to Uganda (or wherever) then the food is worth. The US doesn't want to foot that bill, and the nation in question can't. You can't leave it out in the fields to rot either, since that's a health risk. So what do you do? Buy the excess to keep your farmers in business and keep prices down, and destroy what you don't use. There's really no other option.

The excess food is inspected by EU officials to confirm that it is of marketable quality, and then it is destroyed. No, I am not kidding.

Well isn't that nice for you. But it's a bit of a shame for the 10,000 sq. miles of Amazon rain forest that gets destroyed annually, mainly to grow soya for animal feed. Iassure you that I'm not feeling "smug". Mainly just scared. I'd actually like to have kids someday and would like there to be something left of the World for them to grow up in. The level of consumption of meat in the US and Western Europe isn't sustainable.

Bringing this back to Shadowrun, one of the reasons I have for the omnipresence of Soy is the collapse of GM crops which I decided happened during the first VITAS plague. GM crops have the following disadvantages from a survivability point of view (ignoring economic and ethical problems).
1. Monoculture. With the crops being near-as-possible genetically identical, one good blight can wipe out the whole year's crop, world wide. Google for the Irish potato famine for an idea of the principle.
2a. Dependency on pesticides. The usual advantage of GM crops to farmers is that they've been engineered to survive herbicides and pesticides that would kill normal plants. This means that undesirable plants and pests can be anihalated without harming them.
2b. Dependency on fertilizers. The intensive farming allowed by modern agriculture leaves the ground heavily depleted in nutrients which must be compensated for by bringing in fertilisers.
The problem with both of these is that during great social upheaval (such as VITAS and the Euro-Wars), normal supply infrastructure can collapse, leading to a great fall in crop production.
3. Terminator crops. GM crops can be engineered to be sterile. In order to grow more crops each year a farmer must purchase more seed from the patent holder (rather than save seed as is normally done). Once you start down the GM route, it's very hard to go back to non-GM crop growth for several interesting reasons. The terminator crop scenario is a big risk in social and economic upheaval.

So the above is my reasoning for the food mono-culture in Shadowrun - a near-calamatous collapse of agriculture. The only problem is that Soy itself is a common GM crop, but you could always say this was the one that wasn't so badly affected or substitute krill.

They make themselves tasty on purpose as part of an evil plot to have us turn the whole world into suitable grazing land. They can secretly survive in a high CO2 environment so when we die off from oxygen depletion, the cows will inherit the whole world for themselves. Then the secret cow masters from Orion will arrive to assume command.

I'm just guessing.

If we weren't meant to snort cocaine, why does it feel so good? If we weren't meant to ride motorcycles without helmets, why is it so fun? If we weren't meant to commit arson, why is fire so pretty?

I have a problem with this.


Let's say we stop paying farmers for the excess. The farmers now have useless crop, yes? So they have to either let it rot on the vine, or foot the bill to destroy it themselves.

In either case, next season, they damn sure aren't going to be producing as much. You'd think that makes sense, right?

Well, you would... Until you realize that bread just jumped to eight bucks a loaf for the store brand. An apple became a five dollar variety treat, and you can freaking forget about having you some nice grape juice.


Why? It's simple. Economics. The less there is of something, the more there is demand, the more you charge for it. Since farmers, while admittedly not in the usual position of needing to keep food on the table, and usually capable of using down-to-earth skills to keep a roof over their heads, would generally like to prosper instead of ekeing out a substicance level of existance, they will raise the price of what they DO produce.

That waste may seem wasteful to you, but it serves a purpose. For one, it's a lot better than just saying "Well, subsidize the farmers, then". Why? Say there's a drought somewhere, and it's harvest dosen't come in. Under normal circumstances, we're producing more than we use, and the government can ship their stockpiled food onto trucks and ship it on down the pike.

Oh. Wait. I forgot. We stopped that wasteful practice. So now there's famine, and the government is scrambling to buy any food it can get it's hands on, at any price, and ultimately you're now footing the bill.

Who's the loser here? The people who are having a hard time affording food right now. They suddenly find themselves starving. The rest of us find our wallets a whole hell of a lot lighter. And of course, in the case of a poor harvest somewhere, it's alllllll fucked up.

I'm taking you entirely out of context, but I love that line.

And now I exit this conversation, most likely to never post in it again.

I respectfully suggest that you made this figure up rather than derive it from any in-depth economic analysis. As such, it would fall under the heading of hyperbole.

Firstly, not producing so much we have to burn vast quantities to get rid of it is not the same as living on the edge of shortage. It's perfectly possible and reasonable for a government to build up a stockpile of food to see the country through a disaster. That's a good use of purchasing power and certainly a better solution than chronic over-production.

Secondly, your "simple economics" is too simple. You think subsides keep the market price down? Where do you think the money for the subsides comes from? This isn't saving you and I money. It's costing us more. Besides, the subsides aren't going to keep the market price down whereever the money comes from. They're buying produce and burning it to keep prices up. Think about it. It's supply and demand. They're reducing supply with an artificial demand. If there were an excess then prices would have to fall.

Thirdly, subsides can lead to real insanity. I could only google up figures for the 1990's but here's a good example:
In 1997, the UK imported 240 000 tonnes of pork and 125 000 tonnes of lamb. In the same year it exported 195 000 tonnes of pork and 102 000 tonnes of lamb. Does that make sense? Only in terms of a farmer claiming subsidies. Parties are being paid to produce regardless of sale, therefore it makes sense for countries to produce and essentially "swap" produce with each other in order to both claim subsidies and reap some sales. It's more complicated than that in practice of course, but that's the sort of insanity that becomes profitable when you try to artificially maintain a business model that doesn't work. It just doesn't make sense from a system point of view.

All of this ignores the effect that rich governments subsidising their domestic production has on third world countries that would like to export abroad but can't compete because the market is rigged. Think - all that cheap food out there, and we (in Europe and the US), can't have it, because our governement is handing all our money over the farming lobby so that they can match the price.

All subsidies mean is that we pay twice for our food.

Edit: I'm sorry if this all comes across of being very capitalist. But I am one.