If you happen to know of any, that do use dogs in the study, I’d appreciate it if you’d share the links or titles with me. We have one member that refuses to accept any research unless it’s specie specific. It’s been a running debate for sometime. Our position is that grains, lectins, glutinous, etc are bad for dogs, hers is the opposite. Anything you’ve got would be appreciated! Thanks!

Andrew: “Rice farming always has been, is, and will always be an environmental nightmare.”

False. Verifiably false. See previous post of mine.

A: “All farming requires displacement of ecosystems.”

So what? All everything requires displacement of everything else.

A: “The argument falls flat at the simple problems of land area and irrigation”

Problems that can be, and in some places are being, solved. Agroecology. Permaculture. Regenerative agriculture.  Your points have been thoroughly refuted.  You just have to read outside the (apparently) narrow zone in which you’ve been confining yourself.

A: “‘There is no possible way that 7 billion humans (on the way to 10+ billion) could possibly be, or eat like, hunter gatherers.’Employing this argument requires fallacious implementation of the is-ought problem. It is simply absurd to make the argument that “well… we have this massive overpopulation thanks to unsustainable and destructive petroleum based agriculture, and we have to do everything we can to support this massive overpopulation.”

We don’t have “massive overpopulation”. We have (correctable) massive overconsumption in the developed world, and (remediable) massive waste built-in to the whole system. Another fundamental fallacy of neo-Malthusians. (One of many. It has taken me about 10 years to identify them.) Only rich Westerners who cannot imagine a different and more-modest way of living speak of “massive overpopulation”.

And yes, obviously (if we have any ethical sense at all) we have to take care of the humans that exist today. We cannot roll back the clock to 1900.  Too late. What’s done is done.
 
A: “your assessments of Diamond, et al are unconvincing, and your striving to be practical and judge intellectual integrity (on your terms) invokes commonsencial, but largely irrelevant and pedantic points about use of words.”

It is not “pedantic” to point out that, say, the word “medicine” embraces an extremely broad range of understandings, knowledge-bases and practices. To pretend that one’s critique of modern Western medicine, say, (or traditional Chinese medicine, or any other school of medicine), is a critique of medicine *per se*, or the entirety of medicine for all time, is silly. Your critique may  be excellent, but it is not a critique of medicine *per se* or in its entirety. That’s what the anti-agriculture people are doing.  I am not engaging in pedantry; you’re engaging (your anti-ag crowd is engaging) in a massive fallacy of composition.

A: “By taking their use of ‘agriculture’ out of the context of lifetimes of work and tens of thousands of pages penned, you’re bringing your own intellectual integrity into question.”

Amazing! That is precisely what YOU are doing, while I am trying to direct your attention to that very (vast) context.

A: “Doubling down on agriculture is not a solution to population problems; it merely exacerbates and stalls the issue in deeply disturbing ways. Solving the problems of agrarian-induced monotheism is a much better place to start. The moment all women have full control over their own reproduction is the moment the population issue will begin to resolve itself.”

The population issue has been resolving itself since about 1970. Fertility has been dropping off a cliff for decades, almost everywhere except Africa. Commensurate with this, the rate of population growth has been falling steadily and will continue to fall until it plateaus, somewhere around mid-century. And it should be noted that this demographic transition (google for that phrase, to brief yourself) is due in no small part to agriculture. It was the relative wealth and well-being produced by agricultural efficiencies that raised living standards sufficiently to precipitate the demographic transition. This is quite an interesting phenomenon; I urge you to read up on it. In some respects, agriculture is (unexpectedly, but undeniably) solving the problems caused by agriculture.

I could write much more, but no time, and other priorities are pressing.

Frankly, you need to expand the scope of your studies, and read more widely.

Rice farming always has been, is, and will always be an environmental nightmare. All farming requires displacement of ecosystems. The argument falls flat at the simple problems of land area and irrigation, and that’s before a thorough accounting of social, economic, and political realities and externalities. This is not a point that can even be argued against without changing the subject to non-arguments — such as…

“There is no possible way that 7 billion humans (on the way to 10+ billion) could possibly be, or eat like, hunter gatherers.

Employing this argument requires fallacious implementation of the is-ought problem. It is simply absurd to make the argument that “well… we have this massive overpopulation thanks to unsustainable and destructive petroleum based agriculture, and we have to do everything we can to support this massive overpopulation.” 

Overshoot. Collapse.

Your assessments of Diamond, et al are unconvincing, and your striving to be practical and judge intellectual integrity (on your terms) invokes commonsencial, but largely irrelevant and pedantic points about use of words. By taking their use of ‘agriculture’ out of the context of lifetimes of work and tens of thousands of pages penned, you’re bringing your own intellectual integrity into question.

Doubling down on agriculture is not a solution to population problems; it merely exacerbates and stalls the issue in deeply disturbing ways. Solving the problems of agrarian-induced monotheism is a much better place to start. The moment all women have full control over their own reproduction is the moment the population issue will begin to resolve itself.

Please pardon the duplicated post; go ahead and axe one or the other, if you can.

Rice farming does not have to be an environmental disaster, and indeed was not for millennia.  Read King’s book Farmers of Forty Centuries for background on sustainable rice production (and other grain agriculture) in East and NE Asia; the full text is on the web, free, somewhere. Other agroecology literature , and history, would be helpful as well.  Although the critics of agriculture (Manning, Zerzan, Diamond, among many others) make some powerful points, they  do not have sufficient understanding that they are critiqueing a style and a mindset — an approach to agriculture — not the whole of agriculture, or the thing itself. The very word “agriculture” is too broad to allow the critique that they purport to deliver. Sweeping statements about agriculture are not warranted, and are not possible  while retaining intellectual integrity.  Of course it is possible, and common, for grain agriculture to be an environmental disaster, but it is hardly inevitable, and there is a rich literature that verifies this.

You wrote “suffer more from famine” as though there were something unique about rice that causes famine. That’s clearly false. The reasons for (e.g.) China’s episodic famines were complex and had nothing to do with rice *per se* (that is, versus some other specie capable of feeding China’s millions).  And this idea that “rice farming leads to slavery” is too ridiculous to even attempt a reply. I’m sorry if you find this offensive or trollish, but it is the truth from my point of view.

Yes, you can “demonize rice from every angle you choose” — but not if you wish to be taken seriously as an intellectual. Demonization, and the demons to which it refers, are in the realm of metaphysics or religion, not reason and rational analysis. Intellectuals understand that there are no demons in this world, that everything has both good and bad qualities.

It is a curious academic point about how hunters and gatherers had it good relative to neolithic/agricultural grain consumers.  I don’t think anyone denies it anymore. The problem with that point — interesting though it may be — is its very limited relevance to the modern situation.  There is no possible way that 7 billion humans (on the way to 10+ billion) could possibly be, or eat like, hunter gatherers.  There are numerous important lessons to be learned from a study of “paleo” peoples and dietetic practices; I’ve learned a great deal from it myself. But in terms of practice it must be taken in light of the environmental and resource realities of the modern world. Agriculture is here stay — and a good thing, if one values the survival of the majority of humans.

Reducing nutrition to calories?  Hardly. Micronutrients are my big thing.  But calories are primary. No single nutrient is more important — a point often lost by rich, calorie-besotted  Westerners.  Simple calorie deficit is one of the causes of (structural) developmental problems, as well as of functional shortfalls (basic stuff like simply having the physical energy to put in a day’s work), across large populations.  You might want to check out the work of Fogel, Komlos and others regarding the importance of calories historically, and in human (and social) development.  Interesting stuff. 

Although nutrition is certainly not reduceable to calories, it is also true that calories function as a fair proxy, historically, for general nutritional status.  Not a good, very good or excellent proxy, but a fair one.  Fogel’s and Komlos’ work alludes to this. It also simply stands to reason: a calorie-sufficient diet composed of natural foods (typically a variety) is unlikely — not certain, but unlikely — to be grossly deficient in the other nutrients, with a few exceptions (iodine deficiency in Africa and elsewhere; vitamin A deficiency in people who eat no animal  foods; etc.). I am referring of course to “deficiency” in the classic sense.

Rice farming does not have to be an environmental disaster, and indeed was not for millennia.  Read King’s book Farmers of Forty Centuries for background on sustainable rice production (and other grain agriculture) in East and NE Asia; the full text is on the web, free, somewhere. Other agroecology literature , and history, would be helpful as well.  Although the critics of agriculture (Manning, Zerzan, Diamond, among many others) make some powerful points, they  do not have sufficient understanding that they are critiqueing a style and a mindset — an approach to agriculture — not the whole of agriculture, or the thing itself. The very word “agriculture” is too broad to allow the critique that they purport to deliver. Sweeping statements about agriculture are not warranted, and are not possible  while retaining intellectual integrity.  Of course it is possible, and common, for grain agriculture to be an environmental disaster, but it is hardly inevitable, and there is a rich literature that verifies this.

You wrote “suffer more from famine” as though there were something unique about rice that causes famine. That’s clearly false. The reasons for (e.g.) China’s episodic famines were complex and had nothing to do with rice *per se* (that is, versus some other specie capable of feeding China’s millions).  And this idea that “rice farming leads to slavery” is too ridiculous to even attempt a reply. I’m sorry if you find this offensive or trollish, but it is the truth from my point of view.

Yes, you can “demonize rice from every angle you choose” — but not if you wish to be taken seriously as an intellectual. Demonization, and the demons to which it refers, are in the realm of metaphysics or religion, not reason and rational analysis. Intellectuals understand that there are no demons in this world, that everything has both good and bad qualities.

It is a curious academic point about how hunters and gatherers had it good relative to neolithic/agricultural grain consumers.  I don’t think anyone denies it anymore. The problem with that point — interesting though it may be — is its very limited relevance to the modern situation.  There is no possible way that 7 billion humans (on the way to 10+ billion) could possibly be, or eat like, hunter gatherers.  There are numerous important lessons to be learned from a study of “paleo” peoples and dietetic practices; I’ve learned a great deal from it myself. But in terms of practice it must be taken in light of the environmental and resource realities of the modern world. Agriculture is here stay — and a good thing, if one values the survival of the majority of humans.

Reducing nutrition to calories?  Hardly. Micronutrients are my big thing.  But calories are primary. No single nutrient is more important — a point often lost by rich, calorie-besotted  Westerners.  Simple calorie deficit is one of the causes of (structural) developmental problems, as well as of functional shortfalls (basic stuff like simply having the physical energy to put in a day’s work), across large populations.  You might want to check out the work of Fogel, Komlos and others regarding the importance of calories historically, and in human (and social) development.  Interesting stuff. 

Although nutrition is certainly not reduceable to calories, it is also true that calories function as a fair proxy, historically, for general nutritional status.  Not a good, very good or excellent proxy, but a fair one.  Fogel’s and Komlos’ work alludes to this. It also simply stands to reason: a calorie-sufficient diet composed of natural foods (typically a variety) is unlikely — not certain, but unlikely — to be grossly deficient in the other nutrients, with a few exceptions (iodine deficiency in Africa and elsewhere; vitamin A deficiency in people who eat no animal  foods; etc.). I am referring of course to “deficiency” in the classic sense.

Rice farming is an environmental disaster. Paddy farming displaces species and dispatches ecosystems like nothing else, and I’ll demonize it from every angle I so choose.

The only thing you’re accidentally hitting on is that it’s not only rice  that causes some of these problems, but agriculture in general (grain agriculture in particular). 

Reducing nutrition to calories? Now that’s fucking foolish. Your analysis here isn’t as penetrating as you apparently think, so I’ll thank you to drop the judgments and proclamations. Nobody likes a troll.