Sunday, May 16, 2010

Notes to be organized: Vegetarian Discussion: Morals and Efficiency

1. Vegetarian
a. protein
b. Suffering, morality - magical
b1. The use of morality
tends to be emotional (which tends to mean
equals bunk)
b2. taxes = suffering (taxes lead to suffering)

2. Sentient (1b) - pets VS non-pets,
emotional connection (b1)
note: 2a. Sentience as measure for problem with eating
"the less sentient it is, the less I care about it."
"personal preference"
2b. Personal preference coincides with anarchism
and having different places or different tolerances
(i.e. Not imposing morals (personal preferences /
emotional reactions)
2c. Rock is not living.
2d. The levels of sentience - akin to NAP
and proper amount of retaliation.
2d1. Still room for revision though.

3. If plants suffer, still argument for vegetarianism.
10 pounds of plants to make 1 pound meat (heard that
also from StrangeGlobal).
Which I found to be an enlightening argument,
because I have before used the example of
extreme non-suffering ethics, where it meant
that you didn't attack or eat anything (because
plants suffer too), thus
making the ethical argument for vegetarianism
absurd (unless you don't care about dying of
starvation).

4. Video response (I'll just have to remember to
go into it each time).

-5. Emotional response:
suffering,
rights.
5a. Rights need to be discussed, if we're going
to be looking at if animals are equal to humans
in this regard.

6. Emotional component:
pushing switch, pushing people;
discuss.

7. Heirchy of reasons:
7a. Normalicy (it's normal, why change it)
7b. Pleasure (meat tastes good)
7c. Practical ((Normalicy) and being healthy)
7d. Moral

8. Meat normal (7a) because of The State.
(not efficient)
This is where vegetarianism and anarchism
agree and are friendly, I think.

9. Absurd attack with ethics.
Well, it's both, I think; ethics and economy.

10. "These are not the droids you're looking for"
Well, that was said in reference to droids
that they WERE looking for, but whatever.

11. "Ethics is what killed slavery."
Same way with "If people stopped supporting
the war in Iraq, there would be no war."

12. "because it is only humans that can have
ethical regard for humans and similar creatures.
A cow is no one in the same category as a human
being or rational creature."
Which is exactly his point: humans are the
ones who do it for non-survival reason,
not less-sentient animals.

13.
13a. "When it's convenient for us (such as the
day in vitro meat is cheaper), I have no doubt
we will look back on this and think how barbaric we were."
I agree. It reminds me of when I first saw
confederalsocialist's video (and this example
may be specific to me) - I had no understanding
of the position, and now I do. Likewise, it's my
guess that the mass meat-eating is partially
due to convienience and lack of thinking
about the matter, including myself.

13b. I'm thinking that "the pleasure of our taste
buds" outweighing the morality is similar
to that of being taxed and then having to
pay (if you recall that example from
confederalsocialist/fringeelements)
not just 10 units for a "free" road after
taxation, but 20 units for a private road,
because you're taxed anyways. I'm thinking
that, with this, it might be a combination
of... well, I'm not sure what, but it seems to
be partially ideology, partially taxation,
and I'm not sure what else. Does having
a State make meat-eating more prevalent?

14. Craving for meat.
I'm not much of a meat-eater myself. I eat
it on occasion, but I prefer vegetables.
This isn't a moral reason; I simply prefer
vegetables more, much of the time. I do
eat meat still.

15. Meat-identicle substitute
Yes, I'd be up for that as well;
that is, I would, I think, prefer it,
so long as it actually did taste like
meat and didn't taste fake-ish.
Along with that, as crazypants88 mentioned,
if it's safe to eat. Often artificial
stuff comes with possible risks,
such as with aspartame (although, I do
mention here that I don't know whether
aspartame is harmful. Mostly, I've
just heard that it is, and, I think in
slight relation to paranoia about
government, that's sort of why I
didn't use it, and why I still don't;
an emotional response that carried on)
There's a video series about it that
I've been interested in watching but haven't
seen: Sweet Misery.

16. Vegetarian or vegan?


line of videos:

SomethingSeaTrashed
Moral Vegetarianism Might Be Bunk...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHfYOktF3dM

Jacob:
Re: Moral Vegetarianism Might Be Bunk...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLe2EefzRiU

ladyattis
Re: Re: Moral Vegetarianism Might Be Bunk...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LoPfjzSTIo

Jacob
Ladyattis Vegetarianism Response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=likUc1CypSQ

ladyattis
Re: LadyAttis Vegetarianism Response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWeRHzyVm-Y

Jacob
Why I Am An Ethical Vegetarian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXqSIVyXmlE


17. Check other and older videos
before asking about protein

OtherJacobSpinney
Technical Perspective of Vegetarianism Risk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPCclrbF-tc

18. Comparison of deaths of lack of
meat and of over-meat:
I'm not proposing an ignoring of
vegetarianism, but more of a wondering if
some meat isn't necessary to be had to be
healthy. I'm thinking that, however, this
viewpoint is fine, and what's really the
problem is ignoring this issue, and hence
the statistics about obesity deaths.

19. B-12 deficient: take a suppliment.
Oh. Ok. Does meat also supply this?
Wouldn't that be tastier? Although,
it would mean more harm. Hm...

20."No place to argue that it's the
vegetarian who needs to see the
nutritioinst." Interesting.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

FacePalm Fun on FaceBook, part 5

Beating a dead horse?

1.
2 hours ago
Jeff Metz
Jeff Metz 
@Sean: So what is it that you might believe? Is it simpy that Christianity is no way a possible truth or is there a religion or some other sort of belief in yourself and family that you hold to?

Based on your youtube sources (which I hope you don't get all your information from) they pose interesting arguments, but neither of them (richard dawkins...See More
about an hour ago
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland 
"And I agree about it being rather stupid to be talking at such a length on a status message, especially yours."

If you would like, we could continue the discussion here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=699930363&v=wall&story_fbid=123092494384317&ref=mf

2.

Sean Windingland For continuation of the singer who came out as a lesbian discussion:

34 minutes ago  ·  · 
Chad Wilson
Chad Wilson 
Wow you have changed very much my friend. I was looking at some of your youtube posting and found you are now a strong atheist. As kids I knew you as the kid that loved church. It is just funny how different things are so many years later. lol
16 minutes ago · 
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland 
Sure, I'm up for a discussion. Although, I find the start of it to be rather biased:

"So what is it that you might believe?"
From my standpoint of the context you mean, something that one "believes" is something that one both cannot explain and wants, urgently, to explain to others. From this, such things as "You believe in gravity" stand as ridiculous extrapolations, amounting to self-satire.

There is a huge difference between saying that you're exploring a subject and you've found a point at which you no longer understand what's going on, and plan to explore it further,
as opposed to saying you're exploring a subject and seeing how it relates to God, an abstraction that has always been in high contention, and saying that if the evidence seems to not fit with "there is a God" theory, that the evidence is wrong, or that there will be evidence later to disprove the other evidence.
Which approach sounds more biased?

"Based on your youtube sources (which I hope you don't get all your information from)"
Of course I don't "get all [my] information" from those YouTube videos that I listed. There are hundreds more that I could post as examples of the ridiculousness of religion (yes, I do have a bias against religion, and we could talk about that if you would like to). Since this was on a status message, I cherry-picked the best ones that I thought best-demonstrated the fallacies.
If you are questioning my scope and breadth of books and sources, then I hope you have read more books than just the Bible, more books than just the pro-Christian ones, and watched videos that weren't always saying Hallelujah about Jesus.

"merely blow off everything and are just as bigoted towards Christianity"
Well, I would be curious to know how you thought of it as that, since I thought that were some of the better arguments against Christinaity.
Additionally, atheists are the least trusted minority in America, have been characterized as being devil-worshipping, thieving, sinning, whoring, blasphemous heathen fools. Because Christianity is so much better, what with a God that approves of slavery and genocide.

Perhaps you could refer to the videos that you thought were dismissive, and we could discuss them. BTW, what were you talking about with the "Ginger" stuff?

"I personally would love it if you sent me a message where WE can BOTH do our best to set down the biases that we have towards each others "beliefs" and hash out some of these rather difficult questions (e.g. the presence of evil in light of an all loving God)"
And why must I have beliefs? Why is belief the default? Why do you presume that I have beliefs?

Before we address such difficult questions as, "the presence of evil in light of an all-loving God", could you first establish this God as having an existence?

"Is it simpy that Christianity is no way a possible truth or is there a religion or some other sort of belief in yourself and family that you hold to?"
Christianity is one of many attempts at truth. The man that is called The Christ may have been one of the better versions of some truths, though most of the people that followed him weren't. Along with that, his dad (which was also him) wasn't that great of a guy, as I have mentioned before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWudROypp8

It is understandable if this does not seem like too promising of a start for a discussion. I have not debated Christians for a while now, and I'm going to need to relearn some of the patience I had when this was still new to me and I hadn't moved on to things like anti-statism.
5 minutes ago · 
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland 
@Chad lol No kidding!
4 minutes ago · 

After-Facebook FacePalm Fun, part 4

As per what I said before in that status 
conversation, I have not responded. 
But, I will share my thoughts here. 

As the saying goes, "Idle time is 
the devil's playground." Almost ironic, 
really, that C. S. Lewis said that 
"you cannot be too careful what you 
listen to when you're an atheist." 
Keeping the hands busy is a means 
of controlling the mind, away from 
thinking. While this is often beneficial, 
it is also effective for brainwashing.

A presumption behind such a statement
is that conversation is not worth being 
had, and that such people who engage 
in it can do more productive things with 
their lives. 

My hobby is that of memetic engineering, 
for that we, humans, are what exists 
in this world as one of the more complex 
things, and as per the power of our type 
of evolution goes, we can create practically 
any type of reality that we want. 
Behind my studies are the want to eliminate 
cancer, war, crime, disease, and most 
human suffering. The technology that we 
have is advanced, with most of it not available 
to what is called the public because of fear 
of what that public might do with it.

And how Christians talk, and Muslims talk, 
I'm not surprised. 

This is why I do not focus on a more hand-busying 
hobby, though I could also do that, and I plan 
on doing that also, since it coincides with my 
current interests. However, to have a hobby as a 
means of distracting one's mind from fundamental 
questions such as the existence of God? 
Whether people will combine together and 
make life for someone who isn't like them, difficult? 
You think this is not a worthwhile hobby?

It is a reflection of how the Christian/religion meme works, 
and my being worked up about this issue, if you 
would be able to display it as insignificant quackery, 
then people will not re-examine their assumptions, 
re-examine their axioms.

And as Socrates said: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

FacePalm Fun on FaceBook, part 3.1


Maren Sepulveda
Maren Sepulveda 
huh odd.
about an hour ago
Kirstin Opal Harrington
Kirstin Opal Harrington 
hahahaha wow. people need hobbies.
8 minutes ago

FacePalm Fun on FaceBook, part 3


Maren Sepulveda
Maren Sepulveda
Sean, don't call my mom a heathen. Also God is not insecure He is a jealous God. and at the end of it all every one christian or not will realize he is the true God. if you don't believe in God than fine but don't make a fool of yourself by ranting on My status about your views. i hope you can someday recognize truth for what it is. the problem is your too smart for your own good.
21 minutes ago
Maren Sepulveda
Maren Sepulveda
Also i don't understand why you "like" the fact that she is lesbian the only reason that i can think your getting So defensive of this is because you are gay also?
17 minutes ago
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland
I apologize for that remark about her being a heathen.

And I agree about it being rather stupid to be talking at such a length on a status message, especially yours.
17 minutes ago · 
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland
I will address a few issues before I stop commenting here:
1. Jealousy and insecurity are pretty much the same thing, just from different angles. If you're insecure, you're looking inward. If you're jealous, you're looking outward.

2. "Too smart for your own good."
Well, I'm not too smart to realize that it's probably not a good idea to simply bash people and create discontent for no reason. Unless that still appears to be the case...? If so, I apologize and will stop commenting instead of replying further if more questions arise.

3. " 'like' that she's a lesbian unless you're gay also?"
First off, there's the obvious difference of sexual interest. Two women is hot to guys, two guys is not as commonly hot to girls. Guys tend to be more visually-oriented.
Second, no, I'm not gay. I am slightly bi-sexual. However, "gayness" is not the reason that I "liked" it. Instead, it was about bookmarking it for discussion, as well as for #1 (two girls).

Does this clarify things at all? If it does, we can stop the conversation at this point, since this is a sensitive issue and it's been prolonged at a spot where prolonged conversations are awkward and weird, as you have pointed out.
9 minutes ago · 
Maren Sepulveda
3 minutes ago

FacePalm Fun on FaceBook, part 2


Sean Windingland 
Look: If you're disgusted by it, just say so. It's a lot easier to make sense of, and you'll find a lot of other people who agree. And that's fine. And when you and/or others enact laws that makes life for those people who disgust you, remember that this is no longer a private disgust: you're interfering with other people's lives. That's why there's so much "hate" for Christians.
14 hours ago · 
Kristen Sepulveda
Kristen Sepulveda 
Sean, God DID create the world WITHOUT sin or evil in it. However, He also created man with a free will and look what man did with that....The Bible makes it clear that the world will always HATE Christians. Look what they did with Christ...CRUCIFIED Him. However, Christ still has the final say and will be the final judge, and one day EVERY knee will bow and EVERY tongue will declare that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, to the Glory of the Father. And there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.....
10 hours ago
Sean Windingland
Sean Windingland 
Kristen, how do you know God created the world? Because the bible said so? There are other books with other gods in them - so why don't you believe 'in Zeus, Odin, Krisna, instead of the Christian god?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0A4_bwCaX0 ', to quote myself from before? You are an atheist in regard to those gods.

How could God have created the world without sin or evil in it if God creates everything? That includes sin. And the argument that sin "came into the world" doesn't work -- remember, God is outside the bounds of time; thus, everything that is in time is created by God, including sin.

"The Bible makes it clear that the world will always HATE Christians."
While I do not know that much about past times, I can give a general example as to why Christians are probably generally disliked (to quote myself again):
"when you and/or others enact laws that makes life for those people who disgust you, remember that this is no longer a private disgust: you're interfering with other people's lives. That's why there's so much "hate" for Christians."

Your last statements about Jesus and God portray Jesus in an insecure light. Why would there be a need for "EVERY knee [to] bow" and "EVERY tongue [to] declare that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord"... if, as the Bible says,
"For the invisible things of Him, both His eternal power and divine characteristics, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being perceived by the things made, so that they would be without excuse",
(For a fun video about Bible contraditions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk )
then it would seem that Christians need not be so insecure about their faith. And yet they are. So much so that there are many that make statements like "I'm not afraid to declare my faith!"

Am I insecure about atheism? Yes, to the extent that it means ostracism. I imagine it's rather similar to those who believe in God. However, I also carry a similar thought in that regard:
Blame the meme, not the meme carrier ;-) Either way, I don't hate you. Although, it is tiresome to hear the same old arguments rehashed again and again.
"Why do you believe in God?"
"Because the Bible says so."
"How do you know the Bible is true?"
"Because it's the word of God."
"How do you know it's the word of God?"
"Because it says so in the Bible."
And how does the Bible connect to God aside from the text having the print of "God says such and such"? From that standpoint, any book that says it's the word of God, is. But that doesn't matter, each religion is false to all of the other ones.

So I guess I know your answer to why you don't believe in Zeus: "He's a false God!" And what makes yours the "true" God? You filthy heathen non-Zeus Christ worshipper! ;-)
2 seconds ago · 

Don't Vote or STFU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj6cx7x-Uos



Your vote matters
1. Look at all these votes!
The more votes that are there, the more apparent it is that
your vote is a small dip in the pool. In fact, during the last
election when I was considering whether I would vote or not
(the only reasonable person I could think of was Ron Paul)
I predicted that Barak Obama would win. It wasn't really that
hard to figure out. My main concern at the time was that McCain
wouldn't win, because he had sided up with Palin, and who
knew when that fucker would die and that moron of a bitch would
take his place?
The prime fallacy of voted could be demonstrated in one way:
Two wolfs and a sheep voting about whether the sheep will be
eaten for dinner. Could you predict that outcome? Hmmm.
The less barbaric way of doing this "voting" stuff would
be to have those who did not want the thing being voted for...
to simply not be involved. Those who wanted the thing voted
for could then proceed on, gung-ho! Unless, of course, the
money they needed was part of that group that said "No Thanks".
But at this point, you're telling people who don't want this
thing being voted for that you want them to be included,
and then to lose, just so that they're forced to go along
with this stupidity... because it's called "democracy"?

2. "If you don't want a party that doesn't represent you,
you have to go out and vote for a party that reflects
your thoughts feelings and opinions better than them."
Why? Why do I have to vote for someone? Additionally,
what if none of the candidates don't represent me?

3. "When we're talking about the difference between
parties being in the hundreds or thousands of votes,
your vote really Does make a difference."
Yes, at that scale, it is more noticable.

4. "My vote doesn't count? Well yes, yes it does."
And so does that sheep in the wolf example. I don't
think it helped the sheep.

5. "You just have to make the effort to find out
the best party for you."
None of them. And that's pretty much always going
to be the case.

6. "And then vote for them."
Again, why?

7. "Not voting is not a protest. Unless you tell
someone exactly why you're not voting, it doesn't
count."
Now here's a point I think we're closer to agreeing
about. When I've been talking with people and
they've been telling me that I have no voice if
I don't vote, I give my reasons for not voting...
like that two wolves and sheep example. So, I kind
of agree with you right here. If you can't explain
why you're not voting... people are going to vote,
and there's going to be majority tyranny.

8. "40-something percent didn't show up, and we
don't know why."
Well, now you will. Along with that, it is probrable
that those were apathetic people. YouTube has greatly
enhanced the meme, and now we've got a voice to explain
why we're not voting.

9. "If you don't want to vote, spoil your ballot."
That.... actually sounds rather interesting.
I'll have to think about that a bit. Nonetheless,
I'll keep explaining my "spoiled" or lack of providing
a spoiled, vote.

10. "Eventually, they'll hear you, and they'll try and
reach you."
Perhaps they could take the knife out of the two
wolves hands while they're at it?

11. "But you've gotta make an effort."
I am. To convince people that voting is hazardous
to the public health and economy. How? Because
voting endorses taxation, which part of Statism,
part of the corruption that is ruining lives
all around. So, if you want to really help out the
world, don't vote. Don't help the two wolves eat
the poor sheep.

12. "You can even go and spoil your ballot
and that still says something. It still
makes a statement, and that statement
entitles you to complain about the system
in which you live for the next few years."
So... if you vote, you've accepted living
in this "system" for the next few years.
Accordingly, if you want to live in this
system, doesn't that mean that you have
no complaints about it? It seems more like
you would be "entitled" to complain if
you weren't saying, "Hey, yeah, I'll join
the system for the next few years, I've
got no complaints with it."
If you looked at an apple and saw a worm
in it, and then decided to get that apple
with the worm in it, bought it, and then
complained about it, what do you think
people would say to you? ...Exactly.
To use another example that is somewhat
often used, would you join the KKK in
order to changed the KKK? Hey, you've
got no right to complain about the KKK
if you haven't tried to change it by joining
in and choosing the next leader, who you
think most closely represents you.
Y'know, do you want the guy who wants
to first shoot blacks and then hang
them, or first hang the blacks and then
shoot them? It's a touchy issue for many
inside the KKK, and must be treated delicately.

13. "Vote, or STFU."
Others have dealt with this one and I
don't feel like it's worth bothering with.

14. "Democracy isn't perfect, and it's
not going to be necessarily fair because
it's very difficult to incorporate the
individual into a system that's manageble
in a bigger government level. But y'know,
it's a lot better than some of the alternatives
that us flawed little complicated humans
have come up with."
And you know what would be better?
Having people who want to be included in
projects be able to be included or not included,
instead of forcing people to join in through
taxes and voting.
The second part of this bears of striking
semblance to what Christians say about their
religion: "Hey, at least we aren't violent
like the Muslims!" Hardly a good excuse.

15. "72% find people who vote incredibly attractive."
Noting the 82% of statistics are made-up on the
spot, I give you an even better statistic:
30,000% of people who don't vote lead more
intelligent, productive, enjoyable, and
sexy lives. And that's even more than how
many people voted for the Labour party
that got almost 20 thousand votes.