Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:36:02 -0500
From: Richard Lawson <sterman@sprynet.com>
Harold Ancell wrote:
> A nice story---just one tiny problem that you might want to ignore: If
> the world is facing famine, one of the first things we'd do is cull
> our livestock herds, since animals are a rather inefficient way of
> producing food. Kill off all the domesticated animals in the US, and
> we'd be swimming in grain. Our food would be relatively boring, but
> plentiful.
>
> There a few details with regards to "essential" amino acids (a
> handful are rare in plants), but fermentation technology could take
> care of that handily.
Well, you know, I did a little web surfing on this subject. Opinions
were as varied on this point as they are on "When does life begin?".
People pointing out that one pound of meat does not equal one pound of
grain, and that cattle is more than just meat, we use lots of other
parts of it, yadda, yadda yadda.
Many pounds of grain == one pound net of cow; this isn't rocket
science, it's very well understood, 4-H level stuff. Just look at the
culling of the American beef herds recently due to the rise in grain
prices. And one of the reasons grain prices are rising is the rise in
wealth in China; more grain is going to feed animals there since more
people can afford meat.
Just talk to a vegetarian; they live *much* cheaper lives, food wise.
Prices tell you something....
Frankly, I wanted to skip the whole argument; it would be like trying to
bring abortion issues into a fanfic.
I rationalized it thus: even if he had tons o' grain, we wouldn't have
the facilities to turn it into something useful to consume - the same
argument I used with the fish thing. And we couldn't exactly strap the
ol' feedbag on the US population and expect them to chow down.
All you need to do is to grind it, and in the case of corn, treat it
with lye to release the niacin, and cook it with water, salt, and a
little oil. Most of the world's population is grateful to eat this
well.... (Rice is even simpler, but it's not an issue for the US.)
One semi of wheat will feed something like 40K people for a day.
Sure, a bunch of people would starve rather than change their diets
this way, but once again it's not the end of the world (except for them).
Also, killin' off the ol' animal herd wastes the millions of tons of
grain already used to bring them to the state they are; that's gotta
hurt.
That's the fallacy of sunk costs; sure, it hurts the ranchers and feed
lot operators who watch their investments go poof, and the price of
grain will go way down due to the sudden oversupply, but it's not even
close to Armageddon.
So, if you're willing to suspend you disbelief enough on this one point,
does it work for you?
Sorry, I grew up in the Midwest, studied expedient nucler war survival
back when the Cold War was rather hot---this is so far removed from
reality that I can't.
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 21:21:35 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>
I must with regret, launch a barrage of criticism at this story, with the
understanding that I am not a specialist in any of the things I'm talking
about, so I could be wrong...
I find it implausible that a virus could be created that would only slay
livestock. Most viruses are confined to single species. Of course, they
could also create multiple viruses for different species, which would be
more plausible.
It would be *real* hard to create just one that's this specific.
Also, create that much viri, and the possibility of a mutation that
includes humans as a host is---frightening.
Also, AIDS isn't a very good analogy. This virus kills very quickly,
spreads at a rather humongously rapid rate, and is remarkably fatal as
viruses go...Although a few weeks is too short a time to easily find a
cure to a virus anyway...Also, if it spreads so quickly and is so
unstoppable, I'm rather surprised it didn't escape their labs while they
were still trying to develop it. (A la the Stand...) (I'd recommend
reading Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill for a historical
perspective on this :))
In fact, it kills too quickly to spread seriously; without a plausable
vector or other transmission system, it's simply not going to get very
far. Notice how self-limiting Lassa and Ebola turn out to be if you
ignore the hype and look at what actually happens in an outbreak.
Basically, this virus stretched the bounds of believability too far for
me. If nutcases could create that...why couldn't/haven't nutcases
unleashed some super human slaying virus in this future?
I hate to tell you this, but a number of people are rather concerned
about this; a SF writer (Benford?) had an article published in
_Reason_ magazine within the last few years on this topic, pointing
out that the environmental movement has supplied all the philosophical
cover required for such an action. Fortunately, people who have their
acts together enough to do something this hard generally aren't that
wacked out.
Genetics research at this level is expensive and delicate, and I'd
expect it to continue to be so, at least at the level of creating
super-viruses...
Actually, it's very cheap, except for the serious isolation equipment
needed to avoid getting killed doing it. Existing bio-weapons are
easy to produce, they just are (very fortunately) difficult to spread
across wide areas.
[ Importance of meat. ]
Also, if scientists could clone pigs in vast enough quantities to save
the world from starvation, why couldn't they do the same with fish?
Either they shouldn't be able to supply the pigs fast enough to make a
difference (What about transportation for all these pigs, etc...), or
there seems to be no reason they couldn't have just started bulk cloning
fish.
Yep, the distribution problem is a killer; that's another reason grain
is so popular when things get tough.
Also, raising zillions of catfish would be quite easy. Each of us
could raise a bunch in an extra bathtub or whatnot.
(As a piece of writing, this is good as always, but as an academic, it's
my job to complain about these sorts of things :))
Ditto; sorry to be pedantic, but the story falls down this way.
You could adjust it thus:
Moderate the speed of the plague, but keep it's eventual affect
(basicly wave your hands here).
Turn our favorite couple into the heroes who kept variety in our diets;
meat and leather *are* important.
I'd also shorten the manifesto; you aren't the Washington Post or NYT
publishing the Unibomber's ravings (at the FBI's request---and the
ploy did work).
- Harold