[ViscountPenguin]

I would imagine that increasing crop yields would do social good primarily via decreasing the amount of cultivated farm land, especially since we're well past Jevons paradox territory with calorie intake I imagine.

While the pharmaceutical industry is large, the marginal researcher does still seem to have a pretty positive impact from an outside view.

The most positive use of human time probably looks something like antiwar advocacy, but I don't really think that most quants have the social skills for that tbh.

[cyberrock]

>decreasing the amount of cultivated farm land

I have good news and bad news for you. Good news: we've known the solution to that for more than a century, which is to reduce livestock consumption, a cause which many smart people have dedicated their lives pushing vegetarian/vegan culture and producing alternatives. Bad news: from my point of view, the masses are not going to give up meat and eggs faster with each additional alternative meat.

[aziaziazi]

Thanks for that.

> each additional alternative meat

As a side note, for many vegetarians and vegans, “alternative meats” actually mean hundreds of different legumes (fresh, dried, milled, split, fermented…) and other delicious plant foods. They’re packed with macro and micronutrients that can replace[0] those found in meat.

Taste is a bit trickier: nothing will ever taste more like flesh than… flesh — and taste is subjective anyway. Meat substitutes can be tasty, but they’re not the same. Which brings me to this:

the masses are not going to give up meat and eggs

That’s true. At first, giving up meat just to eat “fake meat” can feel like a downgrade. But the real key to change is curiosity. There are so many ingredients and recipes to explore. Classic egg-and-milk pancakes are great — but why eat the same thing all the time when there are so many combinations of plant milks and oils to try? I used to love pig and chicken. Now my favorite staples are fried tempeh and lentils with nutritional yeast.

0: I like to joke that meat replace beans, you get the idea. Fun fact: meat is viande in French, from latin vivenda which mean "which sustains life" and used to describe any edible. I think english meat have a similar etymology from mete.

[skirge]

to stop war we need to stop being lazy, greedy and most important: envy, which is impossible.

[codechicago277]

It isn’t all or nothing. The Cuban Missile Crisis should have led to war, but we stopped it. World War I never should have happened. The right answer is to acknowledge envy, greed, and laziness but find solutions to work around these problems.

[logicchains]

>While the pharmaceutical industry is large, the marginal researcher does still seem to have a pretty positive impact from an outside view.

From this outsider's point of view it's failed to have a positive impact; people nowadays are far less healthy and happy than they were half a century ago when the pharmaceutical industry barely existed.

[wat10000]

Life expectancy in developed nations is years higher today than 50 years ago. Pharma has contributed to that with things like new vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and statins.