 Prawn sacrifice Which are the most commonly farmed animals in the world? You might think chickens, but you would be wrong: There are 33 billion chickens, 1.55 billion cattle, but 230 billion shrimp. They make up 51% of all agricultural animals: Shrimp farming “dwarfs other forms of animal agriculture by sheer numbers,” writes Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla in Asterisk. And shrimp are harvested at a little over six months of age: The rapid turnover means that each year about 440 billion shrimps die for human consumption. Zorilla, a former finance worker, quit his job to work on shrimp welfare. “When I tell anyone this,” he says, “they usually think I’ve lost my mind.” But evidence suggests that crustaceans feel pain, and shrimp farms are staggeringly unpleasant: Breeding shrimp are blinded, while the rest are kept in densities of up to 1,000 per square meter, often before being slowly asphyxiated. Zorilla is promoting more humane methods, such as electrical stunning and improved conditions, which could reduce the amount of animal suffering needed to feed humanity. Music to my ears New York City’s congestion charges — currently in the Trump administration’s crosshairs — appear to be reducing traffic, and pushing people towards public transport. That’s what they were intended to do. But there’s a problem: NYC’s public transport system seems to be getting worse, says the politics writer Jeff Maurer. “I remember being shocked in 2012 when I got on the C train late at night and found a (frankly quite impressive) turd,” he writes. “These days, I’d just say ‘Whoops — I got the turd car’ and move down.” But the biggest problem, he argues, is people playing music without headphones. Maurer was amazed to learn that this is already illegal, just not enforced. Which is bad, he says, because it degrades public spaces and encourages vigilantism. The counterargument is that “you don’t want to ruin someone’s life over a minor infraction, [but] does a $25 fine ruin someone’s life?” Some people may not be able to pay, but “If all punishment is disallowed, then rules don’t matter, which leads to public spaces being unusable, which hurts poor people most of all.” He asks the really big question: Should people who play their music out loud “receive fines, or be slowly tortured to death?” Fight or flight China’s air force is the second largest in the world, behind that of the US. And over the last 20 years, it has evolved from an outdated Soviet-style force using clones of old Russian planes into “a modern air power capable of projecting strength beyond its borders,” writes the defense analyst Jonathon Kitson. China is the only country other than the US capable of producing large numbers of fifth-generation fighters — its J-20 is comparable in capabilities to the F-35 — and is closing the gap thanks to years of innovation and industrial espionage. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force is crucial to China’s plans to invade Taiwan, but behind the headline figures of combat aircraft it has some weaknesses, Kitson argues. Its training facilities are weak, lacking simulators, and pilots must spend time on political indoctrination. Corruption is rife: Several senior officers have been removed over bribes and other misconduct. And it lacks support units, such as radar aircraft. If the US and China went to war, “the PLAAF would need to be far better equipped than it is today” for Beijing to be confident. |
