Mr. Spock, I've brought you some assorted vegetables...
- Thread starter Chrisisall
- Start date
Except not in the 24th century and beyond, where they all feed off replicators. The part of the carbon cycle where life processes use solar energy to rebuild waste into food is no longer necessary for human sustenance. They reorganize and reenergize their wastes artificially, using means other than sunlight. Effectively, 24th century humanity (and Vulcanity, and Cardassianity and so on) have placed themselves in an entirely separate ecology from the natural cycles of any given M-class world, a closed loop.
The only time a need to bring in extra matter would arise would be when any given civilized, replicator-using species wished to increase its biomass in the form of population increase. Even then, it could obtain the raw materials without raising a single crop, let alone a chicken--graphite, molecular nitrogen, water and various other life-necessary elements would be as efficacious as a plant with those raw materials already procesed into fuel and structure.
Now me? I don't have a replicator, so I eat all kinds of dead things that once had feeling brains. However, I except animals which I suspect have cognitive abilities in the sapient range. This obviously means no dogs or cats or primates or dolphins; less obviously, it means squids and octopi are right out--which is a shame, because they're so tasty.
1. It has been stated many times in several series that the 'real thing' tastes better than replicated food.
2. I am an omnivore for religious reasons. Unlike 'Vegans' (who I maintain are from a weird planet), I do not preach to others about being a religious omnivore.
Having grown up on a farm, I learned at an early age that if GOD made it, I can eat it.
2. I am an omnivore for religious reasons. Unlike 'Vegans' (who I maintain are from a weird planet), I do not preach to others about being a religious omnivore.
Having grown up on a farm, I learned at an early age that if GOD made it, I can eat it.
^God made soylent green.
That's true aboard ships of course (hard to raise a farm on one), but I suspect most people planetside are still eating good ol' home grown food - if not for the flavor, then for the reduced energy consumption. 9+ billion people all replicating three meals a day HAS to be energy exhaustive, much more so than a only thousand people on a ship with its own warp core. I never got the feeling that Sisko's father was serving up replicated gumbo - if so, why would anybody patronize the place - and Picard's family ran a vineyard.
I dunno. I grant that a lot of this is my own personal interpretation, but the Federation seems to be a pretty decadent place.
Also it's hard to figure what the energy reqs for large-scale replicator use are. I presume that antimatter power generation is more or less necessary to get the energy over time necessary, but there's lots of evidence against that, as well.
Agriculture may persist, especially for luxury projects like Ben Sisko's establishment and the Picard vineyard (and I've argued in the past that it's difficult to determine who actually owns either property, or what their purpose is in the great big commune of United Earth). I figure that at least the industrialized meat business is probably a thing of the past.
Also it's hard to figure what the energy reqs for large-scale replicator use are. I presume that antimatter power generation is more or less necessary to get the energy over time necessary, but there's lots of evidence against that, as well.
Agriculture may persist, especially for luxury projects like Ben Sisko's establishment and the Picard vineyard (and I've argued in the past that it's difficult to determine who actually owns either property, or what their purpose is in the great big commune of United Earth). I figure that at least the industrialized meat business is probably a thing of the past.
It's also possible that even real, non-replicated meats are culture-grown, and not obtained from slaughtered animals.
Which raises the question: how many of you vegetarians would eat vat-grown meat, not involving the killing of animals?
Which raises the question: how many of you vegetarians would eat vat-grown meat, not involving the killing of animals?
I love animals; they're delicious.
We are at the top of the food chain. If the animals below us on the food chain can't avoid being killed by us, screw 'em.
Is that a direct enough philosophy?
Seems like a good one to me.
You personally are doing no such thing (unless you hunt and kill an animal in the wild).
By the time the animal gets to my plate, it's already dead and cooked. If I don't eat it, someone else will. So why shouldn't I make the animal's death count for something?
Well considering I am going to stat Atkins soon, "pass the bloody corpses"! I am diabetic and something of a carb addict. Eating low carb is really the only thing that controls my cravings and my blood sugar. And really Atkins is just the way man ate for the first 2 million years or so.
I would eat of the turkey once more-it's the only meat that I miss, but show me a pizza & I forget about that.
Quite logical, my friend. I am a compassionate person, therefore I am obligated to make that cow's death count for something. Fire up the grill and pass me that steak!
You personally are doing no such thing (unless you hunt and kill an animal in the wild).
By the time the animal gets to my plate, it's already dead and cooked. If I don't eat it, someone else will. So why shouldn't I make the animal's death count for something?
The animal rights revolution will not be trivialized.
They will pull those tongs & skewers from your dead human hands.
