Earthlings in the Capitalocene

Was the insect farming industry doomed from the start? Or where they just pitching their product in the wrong direction? In this video we explore, together with experts from the industry, what the future holds for insect farming and insect waste management.

Taken together, our evidence indicates that the cultural natures of millennia and centuries ago are highly associated with and may have shaped current global patterns of KBAs, vertebrate species richness, and threatened species (Fig. 4B). There is also some indication that after 1500 CE, the strength of this association declines in multiple regions, indicating a potential shift in relations between anthromes and biodiversity following the Columbian Exchange and European colonial expansion. Either way, the current extinction crisis is better explained by the displacement of species-rich cultural natures sustained by past societies than the recent conversion and use of uninhabited Wildlands (17, 22).

Degrowth, a leading paradigm addressing our socio-ecological crisis, criticizes the highly destructive animal factory-farming industry. However, it does not challenge the commodification of sentient beings and the underlying system that perpetuates the oppression of the “less-than-human”. Animals-as-food, reduced to “flesh machines,” are exploited with institutional legitimacy rooted in societal belief systems. Drawing upon posthumanist and ecofeminist perspectives, this article argues that to achieve a just transformation, the degrowth proposal must gain ethical congruence and dismantle anthropocentric worldviews. Adopting an anti-speciesist framework becomes crucial to overcoming socio-ecological collapse, fundamentally reshaping our interactions with cohabiting individualities within the biosphere.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/55365680

archived (Wayback Machine)

The rapid proliferation of roads and vehicles in North America over the past several decades has made the problem of roadkill so acute that, setting aside the meat industry, automobile collisions now surpass hunting as the leading human cause of vertebrate mortality. Unfortunately, roadkill is still a largely overlooked problem that has not been seriously taken up by major animal-rights or environmental organizations. In the absence of any coherent moral or political discourse addressing the problem, commodity culture itself has effectively been delegated the task of reckoning with the carnage, generating a huge array of roadkill novelty goods that offer the animal’s desecrated body up for consumption as a comic spectacle of abasement and domination. Attempting to rectify this absence, this paper employs the notion of commodity fetishism to examine roadkill both as the flashpoint for collective anxieties surrounding the status of animals in consumer culture, and as a window onto broader structural problems arising from the spread of automobile-oriented transportation systems over the past century.

PDF here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277061799_Road_Kill_Commodity_Fetishism_and_Structural_Violence

In response to criticisms of its rule withdrawal, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told Sentient that the “EPA is saving billions of dollars in costs the American people would otherwise see increases in the prices of the meat and poultry they buy at the grocery store while ensuring the protection of human health and the environment,” a statement that was included in an EPA press release.

(a year ago)

April 15, 2024 marked the one year anniversary of the current civil war in Sudan. Largely ignored and underreported in the US media, the civil war has created the largest current humanitarian crisis on earth with over 8 million people displaced, with over 2 million people having fled the country according to the United Nations. The civil war comes in the wake of a glorious democratic revolution in 2018-2019 that was led by a broad multi-ethnic people’s movement that ended a 30 year dictatorship. However, the people’s movement was denied the full fruit of its sacrifices by the Sudanese military and its US, European, and Arab benefactors who wanted to limit or outright deny the democratic aspirations of the people to retain control over the Sudan’s strategic resources and geo-political positioning, and to deny the African and Arab worlds of a present day example of direct democracy and liberation.

A Revolution Betrayed will be a discussion about the Sudanese revolution, counter-revolution and civil war and its global implications and impact. We will be holding this discussion with renowned Sudanese-American journalist Isma’il Kushkush.

Isma'il Kushkush is a Sudanese-American journalist who has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta, Smithsonian, The Nation, Guernica, and others. He was based in Khartoum for eight years, and was acting bureau chief for The New York Times in East Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya. He received a bachelors of arts degree in history and international relations from the University of California, Davis, with a focus on Africa and the Middle East and a master of arts degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School in New York with a focus on politics and global affairs. He was a Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and an Ida B. Wells Fellowship recipient with Type Investigations.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/45106875

Don't worry Iowa, if you're short on cash I'll help promote your study!

Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE) theory reframes trade as asymmetric transfers of biophysical resources from South to North, rejecting monetary value metrics. It challenges both mainstream and Marxian economics by emphasizing material flows over money-based interpretations of global inequality.

Pyramid schemes have been a comedic punchline for ages now, but they’ve never been more relevant. Not only is there still a thriving culture of multi-level exploitation in this country, but the dark spirit of pyramid schemes has wormed its way into countless aspects of American life. This week, Adam speaks with Bridget Read, writer at New York Magazine and the author of Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, to discuss how our country became one big pyramid scheme. Find Bridget’s book at factuallypod.com/books

The supermarket is one of the strangest and most powerful inventions in human history. Grocery shopping is often perceived as a simple, mundane activity. And for many, access to food has never been more effortless. But supermarkets hold far more power than we realize. The journey our groceries take to reach the shelves touches every part of our lives – from our health, to our culture, to the environment. In this episode of Human Footprint, Shane Campbell-Staton embarks on a global investigation into the supermarket’s origins, revealing how they transformed the world and grappling with what the future may bring. He explores how innovations in food production, packaging, transportation, advertising, and retail design revolutionized how we buy our food. Today, supermarkets offer endless choices and low prices, but behind the shelves lies a darker truth. In pursuit of efficiency, we’ve surrendered control of our food system to vast corporations, promoted global supply chains that hide labor and environmental abuses, and flooded our diets with ultra-processed foods. Shane travels from surreal supermarket art installations to apple orchards, commercial film sets, shrimp farms, urban food co-ops, and beyond, connecting with people whose lives are intertwined with this system. What he uncovers is a complex story of the modern grocery store, the true cost of convenience, and the urgent need to reimagine the way we feed ourselves

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23849681

JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 13, just six months after its U.S. subsidiary, Pilgrim’s Pride, made a $5 million donation to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the single largest contribution to the event. The Brazil-founded company has sought a U.S. listing for more than a decade, and in its latest attempt faced a nearly two-year delay imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a federal agency responsible for regulating the stock market, amid pressure from civil society groups over the company’s history of corruption and its role in Amazon deforestation. The NYSE listing is “a catastrophe for the planet,” Alex Wijeratna, senior director at the U.S.-based environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth, one of the main signatories of letters raising concerns to the SEC, said in a statement following the listing. “Giving JBS access to billions of dollars of new funding will serve to supercharge its climate-wrecking operations and war on nature.”

archived (Wayback Machine)

Colistin, a last-resort antibiotic, is losing its power due to rising resistance—and the culprits might be hiding in your seafood dinner. A University of Georgia research team discovered colistin-resistance genes in bacteria found in imported shrimp and scallops from markets in Atlanta. These genes can hop between bacteria via plasmids, potentially turning once-curable infections into deadly threats.

This is our latest attempt to get to the root of what men are going through—not just what’s happening, but why.

It’s worth noting that the later stages of capitalism, along with corporate greed and an evolving career landscape, affect all of us. But the exploitation of grifters in the manosphere is unique to men.

Think we missed something? Leave a comment and help us fill in the gaps

00:00 - Intro: What Happened to Men? Why are so many men falling apart? This isn’t just about loneliness or school stats—it’s about decades of lies, political betrayal, and a fantasy that was never built to last.

00:55 - Chapter 1: The Golden Era That Never Was The post-WWII American Dream promised men stability and status—but only for a select few. When the economy changed, the myth stayed, and resentment took root.

04:46 - Chapter 2: Reagan and the Great Betrayal Reaganomics didn’t just cut taxes—it gutted the working class. A new gospel was born: hustle harder, blame the poor, and ignore the billionaires laughing all the way to the bank.

07:30 - Chapter 3: The Masculinity Vacuum Once purpose disappeared, the grift moved in. Grievance merchants filled the void with rage, cosplay masculinity, and a monthly subscription box for insecurity.

10:46 - Chapter 4: The Right-Wing Pickup Artist The right didn’t rescue men—they monetized their confusion. Trump & Co. turned pain into politics and sold fascism in flannel.

14:30 - Chapter 5: How to Fix It (No Promo Code Required) No more gimmicks. No more gurus. Rebuilding manhood means ditching the cosplay, owning your choices, and choosing contribution over clout.

19:00 - Outro: Build Something Real The challenge isn’t to reclaim a lost identity—it’s to build something better. For those done chasing nostalgia, the work starts now.

Video description (pasted):

The meat industry and its defenders promise ethical consumption and sustainable farming, but animal agriculture fuels ecological destruction, entrenches human supremacy, and masks cruelty with comforting myths. John Sanbonmatsu, philosopher and author of The Omnivore’s Deception, shatters the myths of “humane meat” and the 'naturalness' of eating meat, and explains why abolishing the animal economy is essential to living an ethical human life. Highlights include:

Why growing up as the child of a Jewish mother and Japanese father in the U.S. sensitized John to bullying and injustice - against both human and nonhuman animals;

Why the origins of human domination over animals are rooted in patriarchy and an ancient human estrangement from animals, and reinforced today by a toxic nexus of masculinity, human supremacy, neoliberal capitalism, and pronatalism;

Why focusing only on factory farming misses the fundamental problem of human domination of animals and the planet - and how books like Michael Pollan's The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the new American pastoral ethos perpetuate myths of so-called ethical meat while attacking the animal rights movement;

Why justifying meat-eating as “natural” is ethically bankrupt - on par with past appeals to nature to justify slavery or denying women’s rights - and how vegans and vegetarians provoke defensive ridicule because they reveal uncomfortable truths;

Why the flood of scientific studies on animal cognition and emotion hasn’t changed behavior - and how cultural fascination with AI and plant consciousness distracts from our brutal treatment of fully sentient animals;

Why bad faith - our self-deception about how we treat animals - is the most destructive force preventing moral progress, and why what we’re doing to animals deserves to be called 'evil';

How empathy, an evolved trait we share with animals and desperately need to nurture, is being eroded by increasing social disconnection and anti-empathy tech bro ideologies;

Why lab meat, also known as 'clean meat', is not the solution to speciesism and human supremacism and consuming our way to animal liberation is a delusion;

Why the animal rights movement is being undermined by the money pouring into utilitarian effective altruism and “realistic” approaches - when true compassion demands not animal welfarism, but the abolition of animal exploitation and a direct challenge to the entrenched power structures that prevent moral progress.

With the rise of Trump and his unique brand of fascism, many are quick to make the claim that we are living through “literally 1984.” It’s easy to see why. Trump is a very Big Brother esque figure, authoritarian, somewhat mythical, outwardly exhibiting masculine tendencies. His dismantling of American soft power in favor of pure coercion and repression is a radical departure from the way American presidents have ruled in the neoliberal era. Mahmoud Khalil and other immigrants are imprisoned for what amounts to thoughtcrimes, while ICE and the surveillance state harken to the Thought Police and telescreens.

In this video, however, I will argue that Trump, for all his disciplinarian tendencies, is really just the logical conclusion of capitalism. Capital has consumed and consumed and there is nothing left to consume. In the words of Prahbat Patnaik, “The neofascist assault on democracy is a last-ditch effort on the part of neoliberal capitalism to rescue itself from crisis.” Orwell’s communist-coded vision of totalitarianism is replaced by unfettered capitalism. The dreary, lifeless coldness of 1984 becomes the overheated, hyper-individual accelerationism of 2025. Our society is plagued not by stagnation, but by uncontrolled expansion.

May 14, 2025 | This webinar will explore the intersection of religion, gender, and populism in contemporary political and social landscapes. Populist movements frequently invoke religious and gendered narratives to define national identity, mobilize support, and justify exclusionary policies. From Christian nationalism in the United States to right-wing populism in Europe and Latin America, these movements often use traditional gender norms to bolster their legitimacy.

A global comparative approach is essential to understanding how these dynamics operate across different political and cultural contexts. Populist actors often borrow tactics from one another, and religious-nationalist discourses are increasingly transnational, influencing policies on gender, sexuality, and religious freedom beyond national borders.

In this webinar, scholars will share notes from the field based on their research in diverse settings, offering grounded insights into how religious and gendered narratives function within populist movements. By bringing together perspectives from multiple regions, this discussion will illuminate both broader patterns and local specificities of religious populism, offering insights relevant for scholars, policymakers, and civil society actors worldwide.

The webinar will be moderated by Berkley Center Senior Fellow Jocelyne Cesari. The discussion will feature distinguished scholars Didem Unal Abaday, Ruth Braunstein, Tatiana Vargas Maia, and Elżbieta Korolczuk.