Okay, this is kind of gross (and also awesome), but that is exactly the point. Cows, horses, pigs, people. We are all meat, and would look much the same packaged up in a supermarket. So eating one type of meat, but taking offense at the idea of eating another, is just strange.
It is the act of eating meat, not what type of meat you eat, that is the issue.
How significant, or insignificant, are you? Well, it depends on your perspective (and the amount of zoom).
If you need help with humility (and even if you don’t), this is a very interesting and thought-provoking interactive experience (click on image to start):
The story of an animal activist (via Our Hen House), or an ode to the virtues of “radicalism.” Inspired, and oddly inspiring (side note: why didn’t “tool libraries” take off? Great idea).
Here’s the first panel (read on from there):
This is awesome. Alternate title: “Get Over Yourself, Humanity” (via Samantha Berg, who knows all this already).
Via Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, here’s a fascinating Information Is Beautiful graphic accounting of how humans died over the course of the most recent century (click on image to go big):
A couple of things jump out at me. First is the prominence of disease (which took out just over 4 billion of us). Second is that infectious disease mortality (1.7 billion) vastly outweighs cancer mortality (.53 billion), which you wouldn’t know based on how we allocate research dollars. Third is that cardiovascular disease, which is really to say lifestyle (meat eaters and smokers, listen up!) killed more than 1.2 billion people.
I am also impressed that we–humanity–managed to take out about a billion or our own species (and you can only imagine the opportunity cost of all the resources we devoted to doing that). And, finally, that the natural world we love to fear (and make reality television series about), was almost benign in contrast, killing just .136 billion of us.
This is a very illuminating way of looking at what really kills us. I would love to see a similar graphic for non-human deaths over he course of the 20th century. Mortality due to humans would no doubt practically blot out the rest of the factors.
Just a reminder that there are many jobs which aren’t secure or very lucrative in monetary terms, but nevertheless are immensely rewarding (and meaningful):
Bryant Austin’s website is here.
The cunning, beauty, and deadliness of a cuttlefish revealed, thanks to super slo-mo.
Need some perspective?
Here’s a clever visual retelling of Carl Sagan’s epic “Pale Blue Dot” reflection–which was inspired by a photograph, taken by Voyager 1, that set the tiny earth against the vastness of the universe.
This is absolutely mesmerizing (via):
The Earthist Chronicles 