Where are all the dead people?

When it comes to feeding the billions, the reality of industrial mass farming is not a pretty sight.

On the subject of industrial farming, heres a video that every human being should see, just to understand not only what it takes to feed us all, but the depravity of the methods we will sink to as we achieve it.

Its only fair to know where your food comes from.

OrphanApology
reply to post by Nowyouseeme

 

Many people are cremated. The estimates for cremation popularity is at 60% of deaths by 2025. Both my parents were cremated.

Also in regard to whoever was wondering about cows, the majority of cows are on the giant cow farms that the beef industry has on information lock down. When you're driving through certain parts of the U.S. you can smell the stench from miles away. Same with turkeys and chickens.

My grandfather managed feed lots for cattle most of his life. "Cow farms" is really a much more accurate term. They pile thousands of cows into one lot, fatten them up as quickly as possible, and then send them off to slaughter. I forget the name of it, but there's one slaughterhouse outside of Amarillo that is capable of slaughtering 10,000 cows a day. And that's just one place, out of hundreds. Another way is they'll send the cows down I-35 to Mexico. So I fully believe the number slaughtered in a year being in the millions.

seeker1963
reply to post by Nowyouseeme

 

I vote this thread as the ALL TIME CREEPIEST thread I have ever read on ATS!

My skin crawled just reading it!

Brrrrrrrrrrr, time to find my happy place and not think about this one........

Creepy ?
Nawwww, this thread isn't creepy.


THIS is creepy >>> Odds are you're probably walking on top of some dead thing under your feet just below the surface every time you step outside.



Your welcome.

DISRAELI
reply to post by Nowyouseeme

 

Are you familiar with the song "On Ilkley Moor Baht'at"?

The song predicts that the person being addressed will catch his death of cold, and the verses which follow explain the sequence of events;

"Then we shall have to bury thee..."
"Then t'worms will come and eat thee up..."
"Then t'ducks will come and eat up t'worms..."
"Then we shall come and eat up t'ducks...
"Then we shall all have etten thee..."

So it is true that we are eating our predecessors, but only indirectly.

edit on 8-11-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)

And not forgetting the warning : do not court your girlfriend without a hat ( Baht'at ) on the moors especially if she is called Mary Jane. My Scottish friends asked me to sing this when we were in Spain. They thought it was a quaint 2 verse song......I sang all seven versus plus the repetative chorus !!!!!!!!!!!!

reply to post by Nowyouseeme


No I am not going to shout soylent green is people as someone else is using that as there avatar but have you ever seen the diseases canabalism inferrs on a population, pretty nasty and totally incurrable, personally I find most people not to my taste anyway.

Puns aside the human body is biodegradable of course and we have over the century's developed several techniques for there disposal including buriel and cremation, but also leaving the dead out for the wild animals as many ancient tribes favoured, a bit like the klingons when I am dead this shell is no longer relevant and we all have terminal dandruff so the body has to drop off one day.

The polynesial cannibals called Humans long pigs as the flesh tasted to them very similar but we europeans used to salt our meat for voyages and salt beef was the staple aboard ship, they litterally found us too salty, in australia there was one tribe of aboriginal cannibals whom ate according to an old australian gentleman I know many hundreds if not thousands of them when they were used to build the railways in australia, apparently because they had long hair in ponytails the aboriginals would break there leg's and tie there arms leaving them tied by there plat to to keep fresh for later as live meat does not go off (he may have been pulling one over my eye's but what if it is true) and after the railways were built they were shipped back out which is why there where not large chinese settlements (at least in the official history but some claim there were chinese miners there before either the dutch or english settlers).

At the end though I would rather starve than eat my fellow humans, though I do get an urge to nuzzle a good looking womans neck and perhaps bite but softly and not to injure - most men do or maybe it's just the klingon in me.

reply to post by riddle6


Yes it is really crazy how many they are able to process in a short amount of time. I used to live about two miles from a large scale turkey farm and you could barely walk outside at night because of the stench. I guess that is the time they would handle their waste, I'm sure if they did during day there'd be more protest.

reply to post by Nowyouseeme


For one thing, we are made of many of the same atoms as the old people. They break down into methane, some of the methane burns, that CO2 and water ends up in your Salad, and thus you build yourself out of spare parts from broken people. It ain't in soylent green, it's just in your soy and your greens.

More of them ran down hill into the oceans, more was ground into dust, and you're inhaling some of them that went into the air.

If we could completely master the universe in a deterministic way- account for the path of every particle through all of time- we could actually know what parts of which people we were made of. We could find out who has carbon atoms from Plato's brain in their brain and see if it makes him any smarter.

That gives me an idea- and believe me there are people who would buy this... you go to modern Greece, or any place where there are lots of respected dead warriors in the ground, and you plant vegetables on an ancient grave or battle site, and sell protein shakes that are likely to be made of ancient heroes. You'd see bros pounding that crap right before the Spartan race, even at 20 bucks a pop.

reply to post by OneManArmy


HURTS the reality of it all...

Nowyouseeme
reply to post by schuyler

 

Reasonable explanation, 15 billion bodies just seems like a lot. You should be running into bones everywhere...but I guess in LA that wouldn't be the case. Ok, guess I can buy that.

What about the Cow thing though?

The problem is that you are generalizing--and so are the statistics. Of the 300 million people in the US, half of them are children. Do you think the average two year old eats 60 pounds of meat a year? Of course not. It's not really your fault the statistics are simplistic, but you are using them at face value without being more discerning. When you read statistics like that the first thing you should say is, "Who says?" and the second is, "How did they figure that?" Try to get to the source figures: How many pounds of beef are consumed every year in the US? Then go from there.

Another question on this- How many rats and cockroaches have lived since the beginning of time, and why aren't we up to our eyeballs in chitin and rat bones? It gets recycled. That's what the ecosystem is all about- we aren't just gonna burn through the planet once and be done, everything can be broken down into invisible pieces and reassembled, and that's what happens to the vast majority of the biomatter on this planet.

It's ironic to me that I read this thread. A couple weeks ago I had a similar thought. Never researched it or gave it much thought, not even sure why I was thinking about dead people.

I did wonder how cemeteries remained open after they ran out of land for new burials. I'm not really sure how it works but after you purchase a burial plot isn't that the end of your financial commitment to the cemetary? The family doesn't pay a yearly maintenance fee or anything do they? So who pays to maintain the 'graveyard'?.

reply to post by schuyler


Yeah, that's fine. It was more a jumping off point for the discussion vs. an in depth mathematical analysis. I didn't think it necessary to have perfect #'s just to begin the discussion. You are correct in your statements though and I appreciate your input and opinion on this. Turning out to be an informative and mildly morbid thread, so no harm no foul I suppose.

Thanks Schuyler

reply to post by LABTECH767


Wow, just wow. Great post.

reply to post by Nowyouseeme


Here's an interesting factoid for you. Apparently no bear that's died of natural causes has ever been found in the woods, ever.

The Vagabond
reply to post by Nowyouseeme

 

For one thing, we are made of many of the same atoms as the old people. They break down into methane, some of the methane burns, that CO2 and water ends up in your Salad, and thus you build yourself out of spare parts from broken people. It ain't in soylent green, it's just in your soy and your greens.

A really good point. In fact the chances you just breathed a molecule of oxygen once breathed by Jesus or Julius Caesar is astronomically high. Here is a source for that which does the math.

NewAgeMan
reply to post by Nowyouseeme

 

Here's an interesting factoid for you. Apparently no bear that's died of natural causes has ever been found in the woods, ever.

Really? that's wild. I would bet that factoid is very popular with Sasquatch Enthusiasts. That's a little mind blowing.

I think my whole premise hinged on my overestimation of our respectful treatment of the dead. Apparently they are either burned, built on top of or just left out for the wolves.

reply to post by Nowyouseeme


Bears are found in the wild. When they die of old age or illness they usually do so in dens, that's why you don't see them as often the same as say a deer. They are also very resistant to bites from snakes and attacks from other animals due to their size. If you come upon a den(s) you will probably see remains.

reply to post by OneManArmy


Just completed viewing the entire vid... Graphic, but educational. Thought that came to mind was what would happen if these types of documentaries were shared with upcoming human generations of EA*RTH. Would the end result be, new types of food sources as well as more respect for the Fauna of EA*RTH? 1 wonders.
Karma related would there be some hidden benefit associated unthought-of.

Thanks for sharing

NAMASTE*******

Ophiuchus 13
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

Just completed viewing the entire vid... Graphic, but educational. Thought that came to mind was what would happen if these types of documentaries were shared with upcoming human generations of EA*RTH. Would the end result be, new types of food sources as well as more respect for the Fauna of EA*RTH? 1 wonders.
Karma related would there be some hidden benefit associated unthought-of.

Thanks for sharing

NAMASTE*******

Thank you for taking the time to watch it. I think it should be on the national curriculum, essential viewing.
We need to take a serious look at our self appointed role as "masters of earth".
In our self assumed right over all life on earth we show we are irresponsible and heartless.
That movie and a couple others seriously changed how I look at the world. It makes one have to face some very inconvenient truths. The main one being the real "price" of cheap food. And what it takes to feed the billions, and where the industrial science takes us.

reply to post by OneManArmy


I am watching off and on now. Good documentary, well made.

I am of the mindset that it is an unfortunate reality that for humans to live we have to consume life. The destruction of plants is in no way morally superior to the destruction of animals. Both are life forms that strive to survive.

The thing that bothers me with meat industry is not the eating of cows, sheep, or any of that but the way they are killed. The process is just flat out cruel and if humans had more choices(such as being able to own hens etc in city) then I think most people would eat far less meat. The commercial meat industry is just gross and cruel to the animals. It is a fact of life that we must destroy life to live, but we do not have to be torturers at the same time.

Here's a cool doc that questions the intelligence of plants.

www.youtube.com...=10

Maybe when humans truly become masters of the earth they will be able to create food without relying on the deaths of other organisms.