Perhaps I, as a Paleo/HBD/NRC, have an interesting sense of humor where such things are concerned. I considered veganism, and don't see much difference between killing a rabbit and eating it as opposed to say, a rat eating a mouse (except that I humanely end it's life first before I dig in).
I can understand some sense of horror about the doings at like, South American fox farms, where they start stripping the skins before ending the life, but that vegan video about the chicken farms just made me hungry.
Then again, I have yet to meet a vegan that grew up on a farm. I think it's an exclusively urban phenomenon.
Paleo really isn't a diet either. It's more like a lifestyle, although it certainly has a diet attached (There are few 'true' paleos though, since most are willing to accept that human digestion may have evolved in the last 20k years... but the recognition that large meat animal muscles, simple carbs, processed complex carbs, and sugars are pure poison is pretty universally accepted.)
I have noticed a weird overlap between the raw foodies and the pure paleos, though.
BTW, I like the 'rotten plants subbing for rotten flesh' and the whole mechanic for producing it. It's a decent and well-coded take on an apparently difficult concept (considering how many mod authors have utterly flubbed it). would you consider accepting a 'vented barrel' graphic in place of the chest?
Oh, I'd also like to point out that this mod works EXCEPTIONALLY well alongside growthcraft and Ex nihilo for skyblock games. Toss in a little 'hunger on peaceful' or 'zero light mobs' and you have a very nice monster-free skyblock pack that nonetheless presents a real survival challenge without resorting to vicious mods like enviromine or spice of life.
Would it be fine with you if I released such a pack on technic? With appropriate credit and an HQM 'instruction manual', of course.
Perhaps I, as a Paleo/HBD/NRC, have an interesting sense of humor where such things are concerned. I considered veganism, and don't see much difference between killing a rabbit and eating it as opposed to say, a rat eating a mouse (except that I humanely end it's life first before I dig in).
The difference is in the necessity and the capacity to make moral judgments. We have the capacity to avoid causing intentional suffering to animals, and I think it's worth doing that whenever possible.
BTW, I like the 'rotten plants subbing for rotten flesh' and the whole mechanic for producing it. It's a decent and well-coded take on an apparently difficult concept (considering how many mod authors have utterly flubbed it). would you consider accepting a 'vented barrel' graphic in place of the chest?
Thanks! The current model is actually based on a composting tumbler like this, which is not vented.
About modpacks: "You are welcome to add this mod to any modpack you'd like." (and the same goes for any of my mods).
Huh. I never tried a non-vented composter. Then again, for the farm, our compost looks more like this:
When I aerate that sucker, it's more like a 2 day job with pitchfork... but then again, what a single or even a dozen pintle-mounted composting barrels could produce wouldn't put a dent in the needs of a decent truck farm.
As far as morality is concerned, I look at it from a Darwinian perspective. We humans were gifted with the ultimate "I win" adaptation. Yes, we are earth's caretakers, but we are also it's masters. Millions of species go extinct every century, Have since long before we ever got here and probably will long after we are gone. As long as we maintain a healthy biodiversity, there's no real reason to get into a crying fit over some white owl or mosquito breed dying out. Obviously torturing them is pretty wrong, but when we kill them for food we are a thousand times more humane than mother nature is, even if we aren't particularly humane by our own moral standards.
There's also the fact that evolutionarily speaking, we are scavengers... but that's a totally different conversation, one I am sure you have had a million times.
Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews of tumbling composters. Never tried them myself, but I thought they would fit well with Minecraft as they are more self-contained.
Evolution is not a great guide to morality. Nor is nature. As long as we can avoid killing animals for food/clothing, and if animal suffering matters at all, then we should strive to cease causing that completely avoidable suffering.
To show that animal suffering matters at all, consider whether or not you agree with this statement: at a certain point, causing some tiny amount of human suffering would be preferable to causing a large amount of animal suffering. For example, it would be preferable to poke someone on the finger with a needle than to stab a horse/dog/cow/etc with a knife. Thus, animal suffering has at least some moral weight, and that alone is enough to make causing avoidable animal suffering unethical outright, given there is no tradeoff being made (and we can be relatively certain that it's possible for the vast majority of people to be just as healthy on a vegan diet as they can on an omnivorous diet, so there is no tradeoff).
No, I'd rather cause immense animal suffering than even small human suffering. I feel kinship with people and recognize them as higher beings. Animals are food and, in some rare cases, companionship. (Like dogs, horses or mules)
Though I also have a diet comprised of about 80% (if you were looking at caloric intake alone) meat and animal product. With the remaining 15% being vegetables (large quantities but they are low calorie) and 5% fruit. I had to switch to a diet like this to improve my health because what the USDA recommends is unhealthy and was causing me a lot of health issues.
No, I'd rather cause immense animal suffering than even small human suffering.
If that's how you want to rationalize it, go ahead. I don't think you truly believe that, though. Would you consider it unethical for a person to go around kicking dogs if it gives them pleasure to do so? The person could claim that they suffer if they are denied that pleasure.
Animals are food and, in some rare cases, companionship.
This isn't a statement of fact, but rather just a statement of the status quo. It's not a justification for anything.
Animal suffering has moral weight only insofar as we are caretakers and owners of our planet. As property, animal suffering has exactly the same moral weight as any other property damage.
I understand it sounds cold, and unsympathetic, but from a species survival standpoint Our well-being must remain more important to us than some other creature. Thus, any situation in which our well-being conflicts with that of another creature, our own MUST take precedence. Any 'moral weight' comes from questions of depriving another human of that animal, or simple sympathy....which has no moral weight whatsoever.
food wise, I am not going to get into a huge dietary discussion, but I have seen more than enough compelling evidence that a diet containing meat and eggs and fish is far healthier than vegan alternatives, not to mention far more sustainable in the absence of industrial society. Thus, again, morally, for our species, there is absolutely no moral weight to preventing animal suffering or use as a resource. In addition, other animal products (leather, fur) are often far superior to their artificial counterparts, not to mention being less destructive to our ecosystem and requiring far less resources to manufacture, and is coughing out your lungs next to a plastics plant wasting irreplaceable hydrocarbons to create pleather really an alternative to the far more durable rawhide?
Basically it comes down to this... Sympathy is a noble human emotion, but where it conflicts with reality, reality always wins. I appreciate the 'nobility' of sympathetic vegans, and for the most part I agree with their rights to do as they wish for whatever reasons they wish, but refuse to agree that there is any moral principle in play other than simple softheartedness for the cute fuzzy bunny wabbits.
Of course, a 'militant' vegan is a whole other matter.
But as to your question, you mentioned that j_malice was confusing justification and status quo, while I think you are mixing up sympathy with morality. Obviously I would prefer to take a rabies shot rather than cut off a dog's head, but that is because I am sympathetic to the dog, I LIKE the dog, and the dog is someone's property and possibly beloved companion. I would 'feel bad' about harming the dog for my own convenience, but the only moral weight involved is that I might harm another human, or myself, in the act of harming the dog. If that dog happened to be a nest of hornets, no one would think twice about my destroying the nest, because there is nothing loveable about a nest of hornets.
But, as far as using vegan alternatives 'when they are convenient', absolutely, Cotton is way more comfortable than wool or leather. I catch someone trying to put TVP in my hareburger though, I will accuse them of trying to poison me.
heh. you have touched on a problem. I actually support some forms of human slavery, based upon human heirarchial principles. I am not even remotely egalitarian, and consider socialism the worst possible evil to ever befall mankind. Some people simply do not make good leaders, or even decent human beings, unless they are closely monitored and controlled. Of course 'slavery' might be a misnomer for some of the human control concepts that come into play, but technically if you support convict labor, contract labor, or even something as simple as signing an NDA technically falls under the heading of 'slavery'
as far as 'supporting' dog fighting, no. I have my own ethical code, and watching or paying for a dog fight doesn't fall under those ethics any more than drinking to excess or smoking pot. As for whether I support police efforts to 'clean out' dog fighting, I don't... perhaps on a community level I would support a ruling to make my community a 'dogfighting free zone', But someone else's entertainments, no matter how cruel, is their own business as long as they are not harming humans.
HUMAN fighting, though, I thoroughly support, as long as it's voluntary... I totally support MMA fighting (I used to actually participate, but not in bouts.. I was too slow to actually fight on the circuit, but I had a wonderful time helping to train circuit guys...when I was much younger)
Then again, most of my views come from a lifetime of seeing how humans REALLY behave when 'cut loose'. It is hard to care about the starving children in africa when you find out WHY they are really starving (Some of the most fertile land on earth, drop a seed and spit and it practically sprouts overnight) and a chicken farm holds no horror when you have seen a lion start eating a gazelle while it's still trying to escape... and it is still struggling 20 minutes later when the cubs start feeding.(Saw that in Kenya... it was fascinating)
It is hard to feel sympathy for an animal when you see your own children going to bed hungry because you lost your job due to some eco-freak claiming that some rare species of mosquito that no one has ever seen before might live in the swamp you are clearing, or when your own lambs that you are depending on to pay your taxes at the end of the year get killed by a coyote you are legally restrained from shooting.
It is hard to take someone making claims about how morally repugnant it is to wear leather when you have road rash over much of your body because the artificial fabric you were wearing just didn't have the toughness of real leather.(This happened to me recently. a leather jacket would have saved me enormous pain) Or when you live downwind from a rayon plant and watch streams full of healthy fish die and local game get poisoned while they produce 'cruelty free fabrics' for mass consumption.
And of course, it's terribly amusing to ride your bicycle to work every day for a decade, and get lectured about what an 'evil exploiter' you are for thinking anthropogenic climate change is a load of horseturds, animals are for eating, and democracy is a joke, and then watch that selfsame lecturer get in a rental car, to drive to an airport, and take a plane to her next stop on the lecture circuit, creating more pollution in one afternoon than you probably have in the last 15 years.
Fortunately for me, the last 40 years have allowed me to see almost anything with a sense of humor. Concepts like 'not hurting da fuzzies', 'greenhouse gasses', 'equality', and the most hilarious concept of all, 'social justice', are for youngsters who don't know how little they actually know.
2. It tends to increase the crime rate among the locals
3. I happen to like dogs (although I am not what one would call a dog person), and I don't particularly care to see them tearing each other up.
why?
of course, there is 4. It's illegal. but 'don't do anything publically you can go to jail for' is more of a life rule than an ethical one.
I'm trying to ask whether or not you think it's ethical, not whether you enjoy it or would participate in it. Do you think dog fighting is wrong? Assume there is no other crime caused, no one involved gets caught doing it, and there is no gambling.
Or, to put it another way, is it wrong to intentionally cause dogs to suffer for the entertainment of humans?
Just a simple "yes, it is wrong" or "no, it is not wrong" would suffice.
I actually already answered that. I said I do not care for it but that i wouldn't support someone banning it. Obviously That means I think it is not good for me, but find nothing intrisically 'wrong' with it besides the points I already made.
that's a very very slippery question, kneejerk reaction is of course yes, but there can be a million exceptions. some children love ballet, and yet ballet hurts (a lot) but depriving ballerinas of their desired focus or audience would be worse than allowing them to suffer.
Then assume black and white circumstances. An orphan child with no family that was adopted for the purposes of providing entertainment through methods that will cause the child to suffer. The child does not want to participate.
Is it wrong to cause that child to suffer to provide entertainment to people that would derive entertainment from the suffering?
Why would I assume black and white purposes, when those conditions cannot exist? It's like assuming Pi is 3. yes, it makes calculations a thousand times easier, but it is flat out wrong.
In essence, I think the vast majority of extremism is based predominantly around oversimplification.
also, oversimplifying things is a good way to entice someone into a verbal trap where they admit to something they do not support or believe.
Want Hilarity?
a Vegan, a Paleo, an EPA employee, and a professional bodybuilder sit down to discuss school lunches.
Epic bloodbath.
I don't see the source of conflict assuming that the EPA employee is being honest and the bodybuilder is informed of their choices. In addition, vegans and paleo-followers have little in common anyway, as veganism is not a diet.
Perhaps you should throw in an egg industry insider for good measure.
Perhaps I, as a Paleo/HBD/NRC, have an interesting sense of humor where such things are concerned. I considered veganism, and don't see much difference between killing a rabbit and eating it as opposed to say, a rat eating a mouse (except that I humanely end it's life first before I dig in).
I can understand some sense of horror about the doings at like, South American fox farms, where they start stripping the skins before ending the life, but that vegan video about the chicken farms just made me hungry.
Then again, I have yet to meet a vegan that grew up on a farm. I think it's an exclusively urban phenomenon.
Paleo really isn't a diet either. It's more like a lifestyle, although it certainly has a diet attached (There are few 'true' paleos though, since most are willing to accept that human digestion may have evolved in the last 20k years... but the recognition that large meat animal muscles, simple carbs, processed complex carbs, and sugars are pure poison is pretty universally accepted.)
I have noticed a weird overlap between the raw foodies and the pure paleos, though.
BTW, I like the 'rotten plants subbing for rotten flesh' and the whole mechanic for producing it. It's a decent and well-coded take on an apparently difficult concept (considering how many mod authors have utterly flubbed it). would you consider accepting a 'vented barrel' graphic in place of the chest?
Oh, I'd also like to point out that this mod works EXCEPTIONALLY well alongside growthcraft and Ex nihilo for skyblock games. Toss in a little 'hunger on peaceful' or 'zero light mobs' and you have a very nice monster-free skyblock pack that nonetheless presents a real survival challenge without resorting to vicious mods like enviromine or spice of life.
Would it be fine with you if I released such a pack on technic? With appropriate credit and an HQM 'instruction manual', of course.
The difference is in the necessity and the capacity to make moral judgments. We have the capacity to avoid causing intentional suffering to animals, and I think it's worth doing that whenever possible.
Thanks! The current model is actually based on a composting tumbler like this, which is not vented.
About modpacks: "You are welcome to add this mod to any modpack you'd like." (and the same goes for any of my mods).
Huh. I never tried a non-vented composter. Then again, for the farm, our compost looks more like this:
When I aerate that sucker, it's more like a 2 day job with pitchfork... but then again, what a single or even a dozen pintle-mounted composting barrels could produce wouldn't put a dent in the needs of a decent truck farm.
As far as morality is concerned, I look at it from a Darwinian perspective. We humans were gifted with the ultimate "I win" adaptation. Yes, we are earth's caretakers, but we are also it's masters. Millions of species go extinct every century, Have since long before we ever got here and probably will long after we are gone. As long as we maintain a healthy biodiversity, there's no real reason to get into a crying fit over some white owl or mosquito breed dying out. Obviously torturing them is pretty wrong, but when we kill them for food we are a thousand times more humane than mother nature is, even if we aren't particularly humane by our own moral standards.
There's also the fact that evolutionarily speaking, we are scavengers... but that's a totally different conversation, one I am sure you have had a million times.
Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews of tumbling composters. Never tried them myself, but I thought they would fit well with Minecraft as they are more self-contained.
Evolution is not a great guide to morality. Nor is nature. As long as we can avoid killing animals for food/clothing, and if animal suffering matters at all, then we should strive to cease causing that completely avoidable suffering.
To show that animal suffering matters at all, consider whether or not you agree with this statement: at a certain point, causing some tiny amount of human suffering would be preferable to causing a large amount of animal suffering. For example, it would be preferable to poke someone on the finger with a needle than to stab a horse/dog/cow/etc with a knife. Thus, animal suffering has at least some moral weight, and that alone is enough to make causing avoidable animal suffering unethical outright, given there is no tradeoff being made (and we can be relatively certain that it's possible for the vast majority of people to be just as healthy on a vegan diet as they can on an omnivorous diet, so there is no tradeoff).
No, I'd rather cause immense animal suffering than even small human suffering. I feel kinship with people and recognize them as higher beings. Animals are food and, in some rare cases, companionship. (Like dogs, horses or mules)
Though I also have a diet comprised of about 80% (if you were looking at caloric intake alone) meat and animal product. With the remaining 15% being vegetables (large quantities but they are low calorie) and 5% fruit. I had to switch to a diet like this to improve my health because what the USDA recommends is unhealthy and was causing me a lot of health issues.
If that's how you want to rationalize it, go ahead. I don't think you truly believe that, though. Would you consider it unethical for a person to go around kicking dogs if it gives them pleasure to do so? The person could claim that they suffer if they are denied that pleasure.
This isn't a statement of fact, but rather just a statement of the status quo. It's not a justification for anything.
Animal suffering has moral weight only insofar as we are caretakers and owners of our planet. As property, animal suffering has exactly the same moral weight as any other property damage.
I understand it sounds cold, and unsympathetic, but from a species survival standpoint Our well-being must remain more important to us than some other creature. Thus, any situation in which our well-being conflicts with that of another creature, our own MUST take precedence. Any 'moral weight' comes from questions of depriving another human of that animal, or simple sympathy....which has no moral weight whatsoever.
food wise, I am not going to get into a huge dietary discussion, but I have seen more than enough compelling evidence that a diet containing meat and eggs and fish is far healthier than vegan alternatives, not to mention far more sustainable in the absence of industrial society. Thus, again, morally, for our species, there is absolutely no moral weight to preventing animal suffering or use as a resource. In addition, other animal products (leather, fur) are often far superior to their artificial counterparts, not to mention being less destructive to our ecosystem and requiring far less resources to manufacture, and is coughing out your lungs next to a plastics plant wasting irreplaceable hydrocarbons to create pleather really an alternative to the far more durable rawhide?
Basically it comes down to this... Sympathy is a noble human emotion, but where it conflicts with reality, reality always wins. I appreciate the 'nobility' of sympathetic vegans, and for the most part I agree with their rights to do as they wish for whatever reasons they wish, but refuse to agree that there is any moral principle in play other than simple softheartedness for the cute fuzzy bunny wabbits.
Of course, a 'militant' vegan is a whole other matter.
But as to your question, you mentioned that j_malice was confusing justification and status quo, while I think you are mixing up sympathy with morality. Obviously I would prefer to take a rabies shot rather than cut off a dog's head, but that is because I am sympathetic to the dog, I LIKE the dog, and the dog is someone's property and possibly beloved companion. I would 'feel bad' about harming the dog for my own convenience, but the only moral weight involved is that I might harm another human, or myself, in the act of harming the dog. If that dog happened to be a nest of hornets, no one would think twice about my destroying the nest, because there is nothing loveable about a nest of hornets.
But, as far as using vegan alternatives 'when they are convenient', absolutely, Cotton is way more comfortable than wool or leather. I catch someone trying to put TVP in my hareburger though, I will accuse them of trying to poison me.
That's eerily similar to statements made about human slavery. And, again, that's a statement of the status quo, nothing more.
I'm not at all confusing sympathy for morality. Do you support dog fighting? Would you say that it is unethical? Why or why not?
heh. you have touched on a problem. I actually support some forms of human slavery, based upon human heirarchial principles. I am not even remotely egalitarian, and consider socialism the worst possible evil to ever befall mankind. Some people simply do not make good leaders, or even decent human beings, unless they are closely monitored and controlled. Of course 'slavery' might be a misnomer for some of the human control concepts that come into play, but technically if you support convict labor, contract labor, or even something as simple as signing an NDA technically falls under the heading of 'slavery'
as far as 'supporting' dog fighting, no. I have my own ethical code, and watching or paying for a dog fight doesn't fall under those ethics any more than drinking to excess or smoking pot. As for whether I support police efforts to 'clean out' dog fighting, I don't... perhaps on a community level I would support a ruling to make my community a 'dogfighting free zone', But someone else's entertainments, no matter how cruel, is their own business as long as they are not harming humans.
HUMAN fighting, though, I thoroughly support, as long as it's voluntary... I totally support MMA fighting (I used to actually participate, but not in bouts.. I was too slow to actually fight on the circuit, but I had a wonderful time helping to train circuit guys...when I was much younger)
Then again, most of my views come from a lifetime of seeing how humans REALLY behave when 'cut loose'. It is hard to care about the starving children in africa when you find out WHY they are really starving (Some of the most fertile land on earth, drop a seed and spit and it practically sprouts overnight) and a chicken farm holds no horror when you have seen a lion start eating a gazelle while it's still trying to escape... and it is still struggling 20 minutes later when the cubs start feeding.(Saw that in Kenya... it was fascinating)
It is hard to feel sympathy for an animal when you see your own children going to bed hungry because you lost your job due to some eco-freak claiming that some rare species of mosquito that no one has ever seen before might live in the swamp you are clearing, or when your own lambs that you are depending on to pay your taxes at the end of the year get killed by a coyote you are legally restrained from shooting.
It is hard to take someone making claims about how morally repugnant it is to wear leather when you have road rash over much of your body because the artificial fabric you were wearing just didn't have the toughness of real leather.(This happened to me recently. a leather jacket would have saved me enormous pain) Or when you live downwind from a rayon plant and watch streams full of healthy fish die and local game get poisoned while they produce 'cruelty free fabrics' for mass consumption.
And of course, it's terribly amusing to ride your bicycle to work every day for a decade, and get lectured about what an 'evil exploiter' you are for thinking anthropogenic climate change is a load of horseturds, animals are for eating, and democracy is a joke, and then watch that selfsame lecturer get in a rental car, to drive to an airport, and take a plane to her next stop on the lecture circuit, creating more pollution in one afternoon than you probably have in the last 15 years.
Fortunately for me, the last 40 years have allowed me to see almost anything with a sense of humor. Concepts like 'not hurting da fuzzies', 'greenhouse gasses', 'equality', and the most hilarious concept of all, 'social justice', are for youngsters who don't know how little they actually know.
Why doesn't it?
a few reasons:
1. I don't gamble.
2. It tends to increase the crime rate among the locals
3. I happen to like dogs (although I am not what one would call a dog person), and I don't particularly care to see them tearing each other up.
why?
of course, there is 4. It's illegal. but 'don't do anything publically you can go to jail for' is more of a life rule than an ethical one.
I'm trying to ask whether or not you think it's ethical, not whether you enjoy it or would participate in it. Do you think dog fighting is wrong? Assume there is no other crime caused, no one involved gets caught doing it, and there is no gambling.
Or, to put it another way, is it wrong to intentionally cause dogs to suffer for the entertainment of humans?
Just a simple "yes, it is wrong" or "no, it is not wrong" would suffice.
I actually already answered that. I said I do not care for it but that i wouldn't support someone banning it. Obviously That means I think it is not good for me, but find nothing intrisically 'wrong' with it besides the points I already made.
So replace 'dog' with 'human child'. Is it wrong to intentionally cause a human child to suffer for the entertainment of humans?
that's a very very slippery question, kneejerk reaction is of course yes, but there can be a million exceptions. some children love ballet, and yet ballet hurts (a lot) but depriving ballerinas of their desired focus or audience would be worse than allowing them to suffer.
The world is not a black and white place.
Then assume black and white circumstances. An orphan child with no family that was adopted for the purposes of providing entertainment through methods that will cause the child to suffer. The child does not want to participate.
Is it wrong to cause that child to suffer to provide entertainment to people that would derive entertainment from the suffering?
Why would I assume black and white purposes, when those conditions cannot exist? It's like assuming Pi is 3. yes, it makes calculations a thousand times easier, but it is flat out wrong.
In essence, I think the vast majority of extremism is based predominantly around oversimplification.
also, oversimplifying things is a good way to entice someone into a verbal trap where they admit to something they do not support or believe.