Karthik Sekar Ⓥ

Author of After Meat, which argues that the inefficiency of animals in food production means inevitable replacement.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

I wrote a new piece, "Getting Cats Vegan is Possible and Imperative".

Cats in the United States eat nearly as much meat as the human population of Canada. Transitioning cats away from animal products would do much good.

https://t.co/qNzhUqlcVm

[Josh Balk @joshbalk]

BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Marshall (KS) — the former Senate sponsor of the "Save Our Bacon" Act — has had a change of heart. This is the most significant moment yet in the campaign to stop SOB. Credit where it's due: it takes integrity to evolve on an issue. Kansas farmers and animals are better for it. The momentum against SOB continues to grow.

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

In medieval times, within the arms race of ever more demonic torture devices, some sadistic genius came up with the idea of the Little Ease.

This was a prison cell built so small in every dimension that a grown man could not stand upright in it nor lie down at full length nor properly sit.

The pain is relentless and without relief and inflicted by one's own body. Prisoners were known to go insane within a few days. A stay at the Little Ease was considered even more cruel than the rack, the thumbscrew, and the other ghoulish machinery of the Tower of London.

A breeding pig will spend her whole life in a version of that box.

These are social, roaming creatures (more intelligent than dogs) who will never leave this corset of steel.

They have been selectively bred to be bigger than their frames can support. Yet we put them in cells so confined that they cannot comfortably sit, and their attempts to do so (for example, by sneaking their limbs into adjacent stalls) reliably lead to fractures and sprains.

They cannot sweat, yet have nothing to roll around in to cool themselves off. Except their own manure, which (contrary to the common misconception) they are so averse to (thanks to their strong sense of smell) that new sows will often suffer from constipation to avoid soiling the space from which they eat and sleep.

Here is how the writer Matthew Scully described what saw at one of Smithfield’s “gestation barn”:

> “Sores, tumors, ulcers, pus pockets, lesions, cysts, bruises, torn ears, swollen legs everywhere. Roaring, groaning, tail biting, fighting, and other “Vices,” as they’re called in the industry. Frenzied chewing on bars and chains, stereotypical “vacuum” chewing on nothing at all, stereotypical rooting and nest building with imaginary straw. And “social defeat,” lots of it, in every third or fourth stall some completely broken being you know is alive only because she blinks and stares up at you … creatures beyond the power of pity to help or indifference to make more miserable, dead to the world except as heaps of flesh into which the [insemination] rod may be stuck once more and more flesh reproduced.”

—

The Save Our Bacon Act is trying to unroll the few state protections we have against this barbaric cruelty - for example California’s Prop 12 - which banned the sale of pork from pigs kept in gestation crates.

It’s incredibly important we don’t end up with this sort of federal preemption.

SOB will not only kill the most important animal welfare related laws in the US of the past decade, but more importantly, it will also restrict ALL future legislative progress (aka how the animal welfare movement has gotten its biggest wins).

The Senate is currently deciding whether to add the SOB Act to the Farm Bill.

With relatively little money now, we can discourage the most pivotal senators in the Ag committee from backing this amendment.

Defeating this bill is even more important given the amount of philanthropic funding I expect to come online in the next year or two.

It will plausibly be over 10x more expensive to repeal SOB than to prevent it from passing in the first place.

All that money that could be spent transforming our society's relationship to mass animal suffering will instead have to be spent just getting us back to where we are right now.

That's why money spent now fighting this bill (and I mean right NOW) is so effective.

If you’re in a position to donate six figures, please DM me.

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

Sam Altman is such an incredible backstabber, liar and traitor.

While your competitor is taking a heroic and principled stand, you swoop in to make your deal. Imagine working for this guy - is there a greater shame?

This should lead to a mass exodus from OpenAI.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@mbolotnikova Have you ever made fresh tofu? It is phenomenal. Definitely recommend it.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@sarah_cherkaoui Congratulations!

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

As of today, the journal Science has unjustly retracted their 2011 paper, “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus.”
There was no research misconduct. This is a shame on the journal Science.
My full thoughts in this Reddit post: https://t.co/oCWRY8Cqmu

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@Snowy20142 @mattyglesias Chickpeas are even cheaper.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@JamieMetzl Great read

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@tobyhardtospell Other states have done this better—it definitely seems deliberate. I automatically got my ballot in the mail in CA.

[Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova]

1/ 📢It's a crowded news day, but may we interrupt with a very on-mission announcement? This wk Vox is publishing HOW FACTORY FARMING ENDS, a big package of stories on the fight against factory farming—and, if I may say so, it looks INCREDIBLY sexy

https://t.co/MOmzFGIQtW

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

We have to talk about age: Donald Trump is too old to serve as President. He rambles. He keeps forgetting names. His vocabulary is in decline. He has trouble finishing sentences. Many experts think he's demented. Clearly unfit to serve as commander-in-chief.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

Reminds of the Canadian researchers who figured out that by depriving chickens of more sleep (7 h to 4h), they can induce weight gain: https://t.co/gHZCVnACrN…

The researchers have photos/bios of themselves in the report. So gross that they're actually proud of this.

[Beyond Meat @BeyondMeat]

We're super proud to have a burger with a nutritional profile so strong that it was certified by the American Heart Association’s Heart-Check Recipe program. Check out the full study below.

[Jessica Scott-Reid, M.A. @JessLReid]

'Ultraprocessed' plant-based meat isn't as bad for you as the meat industry wants you to believe. My latest for @TorontoStar: https://t.co/g6NWM60hKe @drmatthewnagra

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@Immakant99 @giggoingdad3 @ToriSIles @DebunkingDogma @JohnSimpsonNews “And?”

That's my question. You brought up wildlife death. And I pointed out the irrelevancy

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@ozalabCP Haha, thanks!

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

My wife and I made an Indian-inspired salad bowl yesterday: Green beans, mango, tomato, curried cauliflower, potatoes, air-fried chickpeas, and a cilantro dressing.

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

@mbolotnikova It’s basically this: https://t.co/ColQSSKNv8

[Karthik Sekar Ⓥ @KSlearns]

My wife and I have been doing pizza night every Sunday for the last year. I'm proud of this creation, Cheeseburger Pizza.

- Homemade pizza dough
- Trader Joe's Beef-less crumbles and Mexican cheese alternative
- Pickles, tomatoes, caramelized onions
- Vegan Big Mac Sauce