A tear fell from Brian's eye as he saw the light come on. Everything went quiet for a moment before the herd of humans started wailing out in fear. They knew what was coming. Brian watched helplessly as they were rounded up and pushed out of their cages and into lines.

"You can't do this to us! It's wrong!" Brian screamed from his cage. It wasn't yet his time, but he knew what the light meant for the others. He tried to look the alien species in the eye. He still didn't know who they were, where they came from, what they were called. All he knew was one day, they had enslaved humanity. One day they had put them in cages where they could barely move. And that one day they would make the walk... one day the light would be for them.

"Why are you doing this?" Brian screamed again. The anger pulsating from his voice, so coarse from his shouts and his demands and his cries. From his tears. There was a glance from one of the aliens and almost a smirk back. They hit the cage a few times to shut him up. So Brian screamed again.

Zzzzzaaaaapp

It wasn't the first time Brian had been prodded, like cattle. Brian had even worked on a farm before, but that was a long time ago. Brian convulsed and when he finally went limp and quiet, the aliens stopped poking him. It wasn't clear what language the aliens spoke. It wasn't clear how much they knew of humanity. It seemed to Brian, though, that they could communicate telepathically. They didn't look so different, but it was certain they were smarter, faster, stronger than humans. They spoke in several languages, and sometimes none at all. They coordinated almost like a hive, with a singular goal, but also at times with such incredible individuality.

It had all happened so suddenly.

Brian didn't remember much before the cages. The sight, the smell, the horrors of seeing the aliens enslave humanity had wiped out most of what came before. The smell of the metal, of the excrement, of the blood and shit that filled the air. And every so often the screams of another batch of humans filled it too. They were prodded and coaxed and forced through the door. They all had to make the walk in the end.

As far as the eye could see, everything now was cages. Human after human curled up, cramped, stuffed into the cages. The bars were close enough together that you couldn't get out. Others had tried, and dislocated their arms or their legs trying to squeeze their bodies through. It seems the cages were specifically designed for their size and shape. Screaming in agony on the floor, everyone else had to watch as the aliens came through to inspect. And that only meant one thing for the person who had tried to escape... the hammers were brought down on their heads until their lifeless bodies were dragged out.

The bars were also far enough apart that you could see everything around you. You could see everyone around you. Their pain was so close it almost felt like your pain. And at the end of the rows and rows of cages stacked upon each other were the doors. No-one was told what happened beyond them, but everyone knew. They heard the screams, the shouts, and worst of all eventually they heard the silence. It was deafening.

One time Brian saw a glimpse through the doors. He had seen bodies, so many bodies, limp and lifeless, thrown into giant dumpsters. Further down he saw metal contraptions that shredded more and more of the people. But it made no sense. Why would they do this?

"Why are you doing this to us? Why won't you stop this?" Brian pleaded. "What can we do?" But again the aliens didn't say anything and Brian once again collapsed, exhausted, to sleep for the night.

That evening a familiar stench of flesh filled the air. Brian's batch were herded into the empty cages left by the previous group. They could still smell the previous occupants in those cages, they could still hear them in their thoughts. And their dreams were filled with the faces of those who came before them.

...

The next day Brian woke up to a bright light. It was warm on his face, almost comforting. He suddenly remembered things that had happened before the cages. He remembered being with his family, his parents, running around and playing somewhere. He couldn't quite make out where it was, but he felt happy. He felt safe. The warm light reminded him of home. And then his stomach dropped to the worst feeling he had ever felt in his life.

His eyes slowly opened and the truth smacked him in the face and he froze in terror. The light was shining on him. It was shining on him and his batch.

Some others in the nearby cages began to scream. Some of them shouted in terror. Others tried to plead with the aliens, but they never responded. While others seemed to accept their fate. Each individual was quickly prodded out of their cage onto a conveyor belt of sorts. It was elaborate, a maze of wires and belts, but it all led through the same doors at the end of the hall. They were so cramped Brian was pushed up against other bodies, other humans he had to remind himself, on all sides. They were humans after all, Brian thought. They were brought to their lowest form, their base instincts. ""Is this what they wanted?" Brian thought. "To show us who we are at our base?" Brian had asked himself so often what the aliens could want. But it never seemed to make a difference. And the cold, harsh reality began to settle in.

Brian felt nauseous. He trudged silently along with the rest as the belt sped up their walk, hastening their march to the inevitable.

Zzzzaaaaapppp

A sharp pain filled Brian's body from the side, an alien had prodded him and was shouting at him to hurry up. What exactly was said he didn't know but it was clear what was meant. "Hurry up to your doom, hurry up to your death". They had no compassion, these aliens. They had no empathy. They treated us like animals just because we aren't at their level. "Don't they know we're alive?" Brian thought. "Don't they know we can feel, we can think, we can experience this?". Those thoughts had swirled through his head for what felt like years, but was in reality just weeks.

Brian watched as the line along the belt started to become less and less crowded and more and more orderly. He stood in horror as giant hooks claimed each person on the belt. They dug into the back and neck and hoisted each person off the ground. They swung round to a line where in the distance, yes, not so far in the distance Brian saw what was happening. It felt like a lifetime but it also went by so fast and Brian rounded the corner to see it all in front of him.

The hooks dug into his flesh, driving further and further into his shoulder blades. Brain winced from the pain, but gave up struggling because it hurt more every time he did. Instead, he saw in front of him lines and lines of people hung on the hooks, turned upside down and in the distance, in the far distance, the aliens were stood in front of them.... slitting their throats.

Everything flashed through Brian in that moment again as the panic set in. "This can't be happening! This is a dream!" He thought. The anger, the rage, the pleading raced through his system as his eyes darted around the room for an answer. "Don't do this" he squealed out, too meek for anyone to actually hear.

Brian was carried along the belt. Frozen in fear... terrorised, until finally the chain stopped, abruptly. The pain shocked him back to his senses and Brian was face to face, if you could call it that, with one of them. Brian stared him, her, it in the eye. One large eye that seemed to take in everything around it. "You really are doing this, aren't you? At least tell me why..."

Finally the alien spoke.

"For all your life you did this to others. For all your life you paid for others to herd up those you considered inferior and round them up in cages. This is the life you paid for... and for what exactly?" The alien reached out a hand, if you could call it that, and pointed to a sign. "Processing" it read.

In shock, Brian could only stare forward remembering what had happened to all those before him, knowing what was about to happen to him, and now sure that these aliens understood what they were doing. The alien's hand, if it was a hand, picked up the knife. He was calm, almost seemed to be enjoying himself as he looked at Brian in the eye.

"You still don't understand that what you do, what you believe, who you are applies to more than just humans. This is why we treat you as you treated others. Those others who you called your inferiors. So we do the same. Just as they were dinner for you, you will be our dinner for today".

It finally sank in for Brian. The cages, the hooks, the door, even the light. "But they were just animals!" Brian screamed. Though in truth it only came out like a whimper. "They weren't like us. They weren't as smart, they weren't as alive, they weren't as sentient as us", Brian said.

But he was met with silence. Brian looked around him at the line, slowed down now for him. He knew what was next and it felt like an age before it happened, though in reality it was only a few seconds.

A searing pain ran through his neck and his head and Brian knew in that moment the knife had done it's work. All he could do was helplessly accept his fate. His body thrashed around, completely out of control. It no longer felt like his body as he watched blood pour out from the gaping wound in his throat and drip onto the cold, hard, steel floor with the rest of the blood. "This is it..." he thought as he felt sleepier and sleepier and everything faded to black...

"Exactly" the alien said. "Exactly".

For those talking about causality going both ways, it’s likely less than you think.

There’s another study regarding ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) that found those with high aces and who had financial security had 1/3 of the mental illness rate of those without financial security.

It really is the stress of lacking financial security and everything that comes with that, that causes most of the mental illness described. Combine that with how scarcity lowers your cognitive ability by the equivalent of 13 IQ points (Mullainathan and shafir, study on the same farmers pre and post harvest), and you see how much short term and long term damage it can do.

Strikes and boycotts are types’of protest. What you really want to say is that single marches don’t change anything and that we need to mix it up with others. Those types of protest generally weren’t ever meant to just be by themselves. Look at any successful social movement and absolutely you will see them use many types of protests.

The public marches have their place and their reason. They are one tool in the arsenal of social movements. They aren’t meant to be the only tool tho…

Yeah aside from others pointing out that in this particular story (the image) the tortoise cheated, the real motto of this fable isn’t slow and steady wins the race. It’s the problem of small samples sizes. Repeat the race 100x and the bunny wins most of those. But that’s not surprising. So we focus on the surprising one off result.

The true lesson is to repeat experiments and see what the average is if you want to learn the beta strategy (or find the best players).

The answer to your question isn't why are herbivores so big now? It's why are they so small? If anything, you think about the era of dinosaurs, you had mega animals who ate megafauna. Huge massive plants and nutrition there that fueled the growth of mega animals. Even the mammals of that time, and since then until relatively recent history, were massive. Giant rats compared to today. Giant sloths. Whatever we had today, there were giant versions before.

Humans, smaller than anyone else, just used the environment better. We burned it all down and killed the megafauna, and thus starved out the mega animals to become the apex there. So grass became the most common plant around, and those animals that thrived on grass stuck around. Those that didn't, struggled or went extinct. I think it's the book The Sixth Extinction which goes through this history very interestingly.

In the modern context, your question then comes down to how people massively underestimate veggies now. We've been taught that meat is why human brains evolved, why we grow muscles, and so on. Meat companies literally paid schools to put the food pyramid in with meat and dairy at the top and suggest it was the 'best' food. The top of the pyramid. And that marketing stuck with us and our assumptions about food.

But you take buffaloes, elephants, gorillas, giraffes, and other large land mammals and you see that the largest and the strongest are herbivores. If you think about what actually fuels a mammal's brain (glucose) then those question marks start to creep in. Protein wasn't the answer. Eating a lot more calories (and the particular nutrition) that fueled and allowed more complex thinking was.

Obviously, those animals can process grass. We cannot. We have to farm and grow different plants. But even for humans now, we get 2/3s of our protein on average from vegetables even with such a meat heavy diet today. It's just interesting that by historical standards, today's mammals are actually tiny compared to their predecessors.

What we can take from it for the modern world, though, is we shouldn't assume meat is the best nutrition. Your body needs nutrition. It doesn't really matter if it comes from an animal or a plant for that sake. You can be healthy eating meat or healthy eating a plant-based diet if either are well planned (both have respective risks and rewards). The biggest separator now, though, why humans are taller than ever, is more because total calories is up. The basic formula of calories in versus calories out explains most of this. Even for humans, we're taller than past generations because of this. We eat a lot more calories in childhood than we used to, so we grow more. As kids, that means growing taller. As adults, it means growing sideways.

But yeah, ELI5, is that we underestimate veggies. Even in terms of what you say about working out 5x per week. Meat isn't the crucial factor. Enough nutrients is (esp. in terms of enough nutrients absorbed). Quantity of protein is more important than quality of protein which is more important than timing of protein. You may also be comparing "normal results" to 'influencers' who are on steroids. So that's a whole other ball game. Almost all the popular fitness guys are on the juice. So "normal results" will differ massively there.

Sounds like this was confirmation of something she suspected for a while. Not your fuck up, the guy’s fuckup. Seems he feels entitled and such to do whatever he wants and get away with it. It’s amazing how awful some people are like that.

He can’t sue for anything (as in have a valid case) because it’s all true. And of course if anything does come of it, especially if he goes off on you guys, just ask him calmly if ‘you’re cheating on your dying wife and you’re trying to blame us for her finding out?’.

Also, yes. She is a preacher for god’s sake. Generally that’s how it works ;) badumdum chh