Why? Books are to be read, annotated, lived with and lent out, not treated as precious objects in a way that is completely orthogonal to their use-value.
Is cacao production unsustainable? It seems the problem is the oligopolistic and exploitative price setting architecture for cacao. Pay farmers more, and supply will increase.
One of the alt-chocolate alternatives mentioned here involve palm oil, one of the most environmentally destructive ingredients on the planet.
I don't think beyond meat is an example to follow. It is ultra-processed fake food ruinous of health, and rightly - at least in the UK - now has an aura of ill-health surrounding it. Better to just make yourself a burger with healthy whole foods, like lentils, mushrooms, chickpeas.
This is the main reason I don't frequently eat chocolate anymore. Dark chocolate is both the tastiest and lowest-sugar chocolate, but its cacao-intensity increases your intake of metals.
If I recall correctly, however, the origin of the cacao makes some difference. Cacao from West Africa and Asia has a lot less lead and cadmium than from South America. Still, I think little chocolate, wherever it's from, is metal-free.
I use the app screenzen. It rations distracting apps and retrains you to use your phone as a functional device again. I now only use my phone for messaging, emails, maps and spotify, but can still access Chrome when I need. A perfect balance.
It's reasoned conjecture on an internet message board. Yes, it is over-stated. But if one treats quality of diet as one variable among many in cognitive capacity, which is the only sane approach, then trying to match the diet of a population to trendlines in society-wide cognitive performance is not going to tell you anything.
>'Why then, doesn't the government bring advertising to a halt? At least they could start with targeted advertising as seen on the internet.'
Interesting idea. I just read that over £20bn is spent a year on advertising in the UK. The problem is that things which are socially valuable - especially journalism, but also a lot of entertainment - are chronically dependent on advertising revenues.
Netflix is an interesting example of a new model of entertainment that generates revenues through subscriptions instead of advertisements. Lots of newspapers have also shifted to a subscription-based model, though only The Guardian has done so without placing their website behind a paywall. Another alternative is public service broadcasting, like the BBC.
Given the three things I noted, I take it that it meets the definition of prejudice, per Google:'a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience'.
I don't mean prejudice in the sense of being prejudiced against minority groups. I mean it in the literal sense of the word, i.e. an unfounded prejudgement.
Note three things about the statement. It's not said in the first-person about their subjective preference but tout court. They are not speaking about particular veggie burgers, or the veggie burgers they happened to have tried, but about 'veggie burgers'. And their judgement is categorical, not one of degree.
I simply doubt that any such statement is justified. In my experience vegetarianism evokes a great deal of cultural small-mindedness. That is simply an empirical observation. So it was my best guess - given that the statement was so absurd, for the three reasons above - for what was going on here. You'll notice I didn't say that they were small-minded, I said that their statement read as such.
As for the guidelines. I think you should generally assume good faith. But if you see someone express a common prejudice it can also be helpful to call that out. I don't believe in the 'principle of charity' as its stated there. I think you should engage accurately with the arguments that your interlocutor presents, not with an alternative version of it.
If you consider it wrong to torture and kill animals for your pleasure, as many vegans and vegetarians do, then it's unlikely that you think that occasionally torturing and killing animals, and eating their dead bodies, is either moral or appetising.
"They've taken the "veggie burger" from "actually I've changed my mind, I'm not hungry after all" to reluctant acceptance."
This sounds like small-minded prejudice. Of all of the ingredients with which you can make veggie burgers, you would refuse all of them? Keep in mind that you can make burgers out of virtually anything.