The suggestion is that we should punish with severe criminal penalties a small percentage of parents who didn't do anything wrong.
That is not the part to which I responded, nor did I intend for it to reflect on my response. My reply was directed only at the idea that being raised by loving parents will diminish the probability of someone turning out screwed up.
Sorry, but I'm firmly in the "It's better to let 10 guilty men go free than to punish one innocent" camp.
With you 100%
I'm also firmly in the "You are responsible for your own damn actions, nobody else is" camp.
Even the world's greatest parents can raise a criminal. There comes a point in a person's life, no matter what their upbringing was, where they are responsible for their own actions, and the course of their life can take turns long after they are out on their own.
I believe the parent poster's words were,
If this nutjob had grown up in a loving environment and taught to treat others with dignity and respect his chances of murdering others would have been greatly diminished.
The chances are diminished.. you're right, there's no guarantee but at least you can make it much less likely.
Given the way that hard disk space is increasing, I think the reasons for using lossy compressions are less compelling every day.
Storage isn't really the only concern for compression - an equally (if not more important, at this point) concern is transmission. Despite broadband internet connections, there are still slower connections, like cell phones; and although I might be able to download at 3mbps at home, if the other 400 users at my cable junction are doing the same thing, traffic will slow to a crawl.
Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with firearm murder rates... Also best not to think that such countries have been democracies for longer than the US has even existed... just never mind that aswell.
In fact, it doesn't have anything to do with firearm murder rates. That's a strawman you set up to attempt to make your case for disarmament when in fact it does no such thing - it only proves people are stupid about gun ownership and that in a culture of increasing irresponsibility in ALL parts of life, people are equally irresponsible about firearms.
That does not, however, make a case for disarming a populace and consequently removing the one concrete failsafe against tyranny.
Have you ever actually held a ROKR? Damn thing feels like it will fall apart if you look at it wrong. Not to mention that it has basically bombed as a cell phone with flat sales, which is all the better for Apple - they don't want any serious competition to the iPod.
And why shouldn't Apple license FairPlay (to Real or otherwise)? Not doing so only opens them to monopoly charges and infringes on consumer Fair Use rights.
Never mind all those democracies where the ownership of guns by general population is prohibited... we're only talking of half the western world anyway.
Democracies where the government believes its position inviolate due to a disarmed population, won't remain democracies for long.
There can only be one motivation for disarming a population - control. How long it takes to appear, to what degree, and in what form that control is realized, are the only variables.
He could have saved himself a shitload of problems and an invasion if he'd just not played games with the UN and the world...
If he had just cooperated fully, him and his sons could be happily torturing, disfiguring, raping, killing and oppressing their people just like in the old days.
I'm not certain this is true. If you've ever gotten into it with a bully, bullies tend to just get more pissed off at you the more you comply with their demands - there is absolutely nothing you can do to appease their desire to beat you up. They WILL find a reason to do so and it's just a matter of time before you roll home in a garbage can with your hat down your throat.
In this case, I think Bush is the bully - the more I read about the days leading up to the invasion, the more I become convinced he would have found any reason do to so, the UN circus notwithstanding.
Truth is they made it and should be able to sell it anyway they choose. If society forces them to give up their rigths, well that's what I would not call a free society.
The distinction, though, is what they gain by giving up a little of their right to the work: they gain money. That is the exchange. It says, "You are allowed to take money from society in exchange for your work, but the price you pay for that gain is that after awhile, it doesn't get to be yours anymore."
Copyrights that exist to infinity do not give anything back to the culture that has bought them: it is theft from the very culture that gave rise to the work. It is a violation of the contract that allowed the creator to benefit from their work. And since DRM'd works have no way for the DRM to cease functioning, that is an effective infinity. That is why DRM is theft.
Profit is almost always "a good thing." It is the POV of who it is a good thing for though. Is the profit a good thing for the employees, consumers, middle managament, upper managenment, board members, or the government at different levels? I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should always or often be divided from "the rich" and given to "the poor" just because we are poor.
I should have been more specific, yes - a good thing for whom?
I meant it in a more general sense, though - profit at all costs only benefits the rich - there is no basis for the 'trickle-down' effect or that increased corporate wealth results in increased overall wealth. And all of that completely misses the point of WHY humans spontaneously organize into tribes, villages, cities, nations, in the first place - for the mutual benefit of everyone involved. Humans are very bad at making a living in complete isolation - we depend on the combined work of the group for our survival.
I am not talking about Communism, which is a failed attempt at wealth distribution based on untenable assumptions - I am talking about the very simple fact that humans do better when they work with other humans. When one person is 1,000,000 times more wealthy than others in the group, to the point that others in the group have difficulty making even a basic subsistence, something is terribly wrong in the social equation - someone isn't putting in as much as they're taking out.
Now, I'm with you, I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should be taken from the rich and given to the poor. Inequity is also a basic fact of existence - if you were to somehow theoretically make every human in the world have exactly the same amount of money, the exact same possessions, and exact same access to resources, and then wait one day - you'd already find a massive shift of goods and wealth from one group to another, simply due to people's ability to freely associate and spontaneously organize. Inequity is a fact of existence as a consequence of limited resources. That part, I don't have a problem with. I have neither a problem with people being rich, nor with corporations making hefty profits.
It's the massive, extreme inequalities on the scale of 1,000,000:1 that result in massive-scale poverty that I have a problem with, because society is supposed to be for the benefit of everyone - it's why we build them. We're supposed to make a living together. It's the "profit at all costs" motive that erases that benefit and begins to benefit the few at the great expense of the many.
The solution isn't taxation, because that avoids the whole issue. The issue is that companies should be people first, profit second. If people first means the company goes bankrupt, then logic would dictate you let loose only the people you need to in order to restore balance. Protecting a profit margin while considering people nothing but 'resources' is a wholly irresponsible way to run a business, even if it does make the company and shareholders rich, arguments about growth and reinvestment notwithstanding - growth should not occur at the expense of society, lest we lose what gives society value in the first place.
I really hate sounding like a bleeding heart liberal, because I'm not and I did not come to these conclusions through exposure to liberal propoganda of any kind. I simply decided to stand back and watch people operate all by themselves, and see what happened, and it is the consequence of that observation that leads me to the things I say.
I'm willing to work for my toys/life though rather than try to tax it out of others.
And I am, too. I derive a great deal more satisfaction out of prosperity I have earned, rather than what would be handed to me.
Forgive me, but someone who writes "YES!! I just about leapt out of my chair when I read your post - Ahhhhhh it's refreshing to finally see someone who gets it!" doesn't seem to be someone who's writing from a scientific standpoint.
Oh, smack, I forgot! Engineers don't have emotions!
Oh, wait..
You did hold him up as an example - if he doesn't have any more understanding than the average person, then why do that?
Nah. Re-read my original post - I did not hold him up as example, I borrowed one of his terms to explain what I meant.
He is a good example of a person stepping back and critically examining his own culture, and I do admire that, but he does seem to only see the bad and never the good.
Um, have you actually read his work or are you assuming that from what I've said here?
As for the rest of it I'm too lazy to look up the research right now, so for now I can agree to disagree. This is not a great forum for delving deeply into things like indigenous lifestyles and lifespans.
A small percentage (no more than 10%) of scrupulous people will rise to be first-level VPs at a large corporation, but only the completely unscrupulous will rise any higher than that.
I'm lucky enough to be in a small company where our CEO is what I would characterize as a 'good person.'
That said, even he has been making some decisions lately that strike my internal "Umm.. not so good" string. I sometimes wonder if it's the nature of the job, that one so far removed from their employees will eventually become that way, without trying, as a consequence of their aloof position rather than their personality.
As a CFO, I can see the numbers aren't adding up and report my findings to the CEO, who may order job cuts. I have to find a way, therefor, to work past that feeling of guilt. Where does that guilt arise from? Not being able to pay a lot of good men.
If I step on your toes here, I apologize because what I'm about to say is not necessarily directed at you:
That feeling of guilt arises from the knowledge that the company's profit margin will remain intact, while some people's ability to even feed their families will be shot to hell.
I don't even really fault the people who make these decisions (people like you.. you're doing your job and YOU will be fired if you don't - you have as little choice as the people you might end up firing).. I fault an economy that favors profit at all costs and a stock market that is punishingly unforgiving when a company's profit margin falls a mere 0.000000000034%.
I fault a country that has long since forgotten what making a living is all about, and what building a community, and a nation, is all about.
I'm all about profit. Profit can be a good thing.. but profit is not always a good thing, and that is what so many have long since forgotten.
Of course, I couldn't for some because the edition changed for some miniscule reason.
You know the sick part is, one year while I was in college we were required to buy some obscenely expensive book for one of my engineering courses. When I went to sell it back at the end of the year to try to recoup some of the nearly $200 spent on the book, I was told they couldn't buy it back because a new revision had been released.
The only difference between the new revision and the old one? One person's name had been added to the credits list.
Sick.
Seriously, they only do that to kill the used book market, and they do it on purpose. How dare those poor college students get something back from their books! Damn pirates..
Damn fine post. I'd give you mod points if I ever got any.
I always love people who delve into the meanings of words and present a very good treatment without resorting to terminology nobody understands.. very clear post, thanks!
Great message, but I really could have done without the telepathic ape.
Hehe. I get that alot.. some people take it as a rhetorical tool, others get really turned off by it.
And I've not just read Ishmael, either.. his other books are actually alot more useful in terms of understanding what he's trying to say, because they're alot more specific ("The Story of B" is one I think most people who get turned off by the telepathic ape, would like).
The reason poor people exist is because the entire human race started out poor, not because what they had was taken from them. And we don't just move wealth around - even sharpening a stick into a spear creates value - you can now feed your family more easily.
poor/pr/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[poor] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation adjective, -er, -est, noun -adjective 1. having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare. 2. Law. dependent upon charity or public support. 3. (of a country, institution, etc.) meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds.
Poor as you're using it means people who don't have things like computers, telephones, cars, etc. Poor as I'm using it means the above referenced definition: people who are unable to support themselves and their families.
Our ancestors were poor in the sense YOU'RE using it - but having those kinds of possessions does not define wealth, it defines prosperity, a very different beast. And I'm not just playing semantics: poor has a very specific meaning, and I used it that way. You need to believe our ancestors were 'poor' in order to believe we're better, when the opposite was true - our ancestors were very good at providing for their own needs.
Of course, you can't back any of this up, because it's just a product of the strong belief that most people have that "the end is near" or "things are just going to get worse" or "this is our peak". People have predicted the end of civilization for as long as there's been civilization, but we're still here. This is just you accepting your intuitions at face value.
And just because you say it's so doesn't make it so (and the same goes for me, to be fair). Here's the thing: there is a finite number of resources on our planet - we cannot support an infinite population. And yet, our population grows by approximately 3% per year, and shows absolutely no signs of slowing (there are of course local variations, but the growth as a planetary whole continues unabated). This presents a problem - where are the resources going to come from? We can only cut down so many trees and destroy so many habitats before we compromise our own oxygen supply. We're already having to choose between using land for building houses and cities, and planting crops. That problem is only going to get worse so long as our population keeps growing.
There WILL be a point where we hit the ground, because it's a requirement of the fundamental laws of the universe - there aren't infinite resources and energy.
And that's not just 'end of the world talk.' Please. I'm a scientist at heart and an engineer by training. I do not make such statements without having a reason to believe them.
Interesting stuff, but all it shows is that Quinn dislikes our culture and is willing to interpret everything it does as bad. His stuff doesn't even qualify as philosophy, it's just a rant.
And your bias is so obvious it's suffocating - I never claimed Quinn is a philosopher, and if you ask him if he's one he'll laugh you off the planet.
And just because someone has an alternative opinion about our culture doesn't mean they hate our culture - that's also just you closing your mind to any idea that is different than the ones you accept.
a. Not eating meat is 'healthier'. The human biology is so varied that there is simply no objective basis for this statement. Some cultures do very well eating only meat; some get sick eating it. Any such statement would have to be restricted to a single group, and the method of selecting that group is still poorly understood (it's not just cultural - there is some speculation that blood type plays into one's ability to derive nutrition from certain foods, which would explain why blood type arose in the first place).
b. Vegetarians/vegans have less cancer. I have seen no conclusive evidence that meat eating alone makes the difference - evidence points to it as a piece of a larger puzzle in which vegetarians make other choices differently. And again, it's subject to the restrictions in point a.
c. It's unethical or immoral. I would really rather not start a flamewar on that subject, but I will say that I likewise have never seen a good argument for why humans should not eat meat, but it's ok for other animals to. Humans being a 'higher life form' doesn't cut it, because that's a very arrogant statement - higher relative to what, and based on what standard? Just because we KNOW we're killing an animal doesn't inherently make it wrong.
This is a big discovery to some, I know, but the bottom line is that by eating the grown plant matter directly you don't have the issues of waste associated with feeding and raising cattle and the like. Why is this a fact that eludes so many "intelligent" people?
Well.. one reason we don't just directly eat the plant matter is that, cows, for example, can digest several plant proteins that humans can't. We'd eat it and it would go right through us without providing any nutrition.
That aside though, it's just because animals exist and we like to eat them so we feed them so that we can eat them. There's no reason to make it more complicated than that, I agree - the parent just made stuff up, at least that's how it seemed to me.
Believe me, I've dealt with all these sorry excuses for meat eating.
What really muddies the waters is that there are an equal number of sorry excuses for being vegetarian/vegan. I don't understand why people aren't willing to just say "because I like it, ok?"
Tofurky is gross... garden burgers taste weird... now the Worthington Farms stuff, that stuff is awesome.
You know the truth of it.. I ate that 'imitation' stuff when it had just been invented (granted I was a child at the time so it's what my mom fed me). You know why the invented it? Because people used to make fun of vegetarians for not eating stuff that looked like beef and bacon. So.. they made it look like beef and bacon.
Eh.. I know, and while I understand the reasoning, I simply cannot accept its consequences in this case. $30,000,000 for 200 songs? That is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.. and that tells me there's something wrong with the law that allows it to be $30,000,000.
It would make more sense to judge based on actual damages and not on the industry's extortionist attempts at rewriting US copyright law. But, that's just me talking into the wind.
Seriously, PETA fanatic? Normally I would not resort to calling someone such, but my goodness you're asking for it.
You eat meat because sick humans decided it was 'normal'.
You also drink cows' milk because you've been brainwashed into thinking it's 'normal'.There's a reason we ween off mother's milk and why instances of lactose intolerance are so high.. after infancy we really don't need that source of nutrients. That said, thousands of human species throughout history have drunk animal milk of some sort. The Masai in Africa, for example, have remained relatively untouched for thousands of years and have herded cattle for drinking and slaughter during most of their history.
We drink cow milk rather than milk from other animals because at some point several thousand years ago, our ancestors figured out that cow's milk is the most chemically similar to human milk, and it would have been a nice milk supplement for babies when food sources were scarce and mothers couldn't produce breast milk.
We STILL drink cow's milk, pretty much for the same reason there are STILL laws on the books from 1793.. just because, it's always been that way. There's no malicious brainwashing involved.
Humans aren't meant to eat ANY animal products, that's why incidents of cancer and heart disease are higher in non-vegans, than vegans.
Seriously, do you even bother to think about statements like that. What you're essentially saying is that eating meat equals getting cancer. So I suppose masterbation causes cancer too, and so does abortion, and so does believing in Allah instead of the Christian God? Ever since the advent of the word, 'cancer' has been used as a scapegoat to villify various groups' pet hate.
If you think about your statement more critically, you'll realize there are several alternatives to your statement: that non-vegetarians (not vegans - the studies only support the claim for a vegetarian diet) have fewer instances of cancer not because they don't eat meat, but because the alternative food choice also tends to come from a host of OTHER alternative choices - for example: fewer vegetarians smoke than do meat eaters. And maybe, just maybe, the instance of cancer has to do with how the animals are raised, and how the meat is cooked, rather than eating meat itself.
I am just throwing those ideas out there but really, your statement smacks of dogma and I do not take kindly to dogma.
At the end of it all, it's obviously completely unnatural to eat meat
And upon what, precisely, do you base such statements on? First, you'd have to define 'unnatural' relative to the word 'natural'; but the problem is, the word 'natural' just means everything. Everything is natural - it's a word without meaning.
That's the first problem with that statement.
Ok, you meant to use the word 'immoral' or 'unjust' or 'unethical' or whatever you would prefer to replace it with. But then you have to answer, based on what standard? What objective standard exists to say that HUMANS should not eat meat, but it's ok for the other species on the planet? You can't base it on a statement about human being a 'higher life form' because that means your answer is based on arrogance - higher relative to what? Just because you say so?
So we shouldn't eat meat simply because we're capable of refined language (not just language, but refined language) and writing and inventing computers?
The statement that it's unnatural or 'wrong' for humans to eat meat is based on grounds that are shakey at best and completely meaningless at worst. It's an argument I have never seen any reason in except that it allows some people to get really pissed off at others.
Some things are more difficult if one is a vegetarian (by which I mean one who does not eat animal flesh), but it is patently false that it was not possible to be a vegetarian before now. We'd have survived just fine. We just would have eaten differently.
The problem I've always had with this statement, and with studies like this in general, is that they do not seem to properly recognize the fact that there is no such thing as a single human biology. Yes, we may in essence share the same genes, have the same physical digestive system, but we all have our genetic lineage that makes certain groups more able to digest certain foods than other groups.
Eskimos, for example, have evolved to survive quite well on fish fats and proteins without any apparent need for things like fresh fruits and vegetables.
Other indigenous groups have evolved well to subsist on plant diets and become ill when eating meat (of which I am apparently a descendent, because I become very ill when I try to eat meat).
I think it is fair to say that some humans need some foods, and other humans need other foods, and given that 12-20,000 years is not nearly enough time for our biology to have evolved to different nutritional requirements than our caveman ancestors had, it is ridiculous to say that we have different requirements for survival than our ancestors did.
I doubt you would want really want to assent to the notion that "anything that was necessary to our survival in the past should be continued forever, even if no longer necessary for our survival."
And this statement, when applied to the morality of eating meat, already assumes that eating meat is a 'bad thing', and is thus not itself an argument in favor of not eating meat.
I imagine if someone was forced to avoid meat due to medical reasons would like a replacement, but I don't know if this has realistically happened. On the other hand I do know cases where doctors recommend vegetarians to start eating meat.
Eh. It's happened to me. My body has never responded well to digesting meat; I get very sick if I try to eat beef or pork, and I get extremely uncomfortable (let's just say I spend alot of time in the bathroom) if I eat any kind of poultry.
I generally feel healthier eating a vegetarian diet, but I don't get enough protein (it's pretty hard for vegetarians to get enough protein..) so the soy-based stuff is a nice replacement. Plus I like them.
That said, I do periodically eat chicken, a)because I still worry I don't get enough protein and b)it's pretty hard to find a decent meal at a restaurant that doesn't have meat in it (although that has been getting better recently). And I just put up with the bathroom discomfort.
I've never had any kind of ideology for being vegetarian; and aside from a few specific reasons, I don't think vegetarianism as a moral ideology makes much sense. The one argument that has ever made sense to me is people who don't eat meat because they don't like how the animals are raised - that has more to do with how the animal is treated, and less to do with minding that it gets killed for food.
Progress happens and the majority of people's lives get better and better in very real terms. If you are in an industry that is highly inefficient and modernization starts to come to it, whine all you want, but if you don't change you will get left behind.
Uh, no. Five billion people live on pennies a day. Just because YOU are comfortable doesn't mean their lives are better.
There has been no real progress in human development for nearly ten thousand years--not coincidentally around the time people started listening to others to tell them how to live their lives.
"Progress" has become the new opiate for the masses of little technoids; fortunately, all it will take to bring about the Techno Rapture is a global EMP.
YES!!
I just about leapt out of my chair when I read your post - Ahhhhhh it's refreshing to finally see someone who gets it!
We have this utterly false belief that we're somehow climbing some kind of evolutionary/civilizational ladder and that at some point we'll get to the top and be gods, when we're doing nothing of the sort - all we're doing is moving wealth [e.g., resources] around to make some people look wealthier, happier, and others end up being dirt poor.
We're the equivalent of a mindless drone committing suicide by jumping off a tall building - so long as we are in the air, and we keep flapping our arms, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're flying - until we hit the ground.
And we WILL hit the ground, because the universe is a harsh mistress.. and doesn't take kindly to childish races foolishly believing they can live above the laws of life and get away with it.
I think my favorite part of your post, though, was this...
not coincidentally around the time people started listening to others to tell them how to live their lives.
Our culture is the descendence of what Daniel Quinn calls Takers... a culture that has taken into its own hands the power to say who lives and who dies, to dictate the right way to live for everyone, everywhere, and that foolishly believes itself immune from the requirements of the natural world that we depend on for survival.
Slashdot Mirror
With you 100%
And also 100%.
The chances are diminished.. you're right, there's no guarantee but at least you can make it much less likely.
"You're black, so you couldn't possibly have any good ideas!"
Meaningless [lack of] logic.
That does not, however, make a case for disarming a populace and consequently removing the one concrete failsafe against tyranny.
And why shouldn't Apple license FairPlay (to Real or otherwise)? Not doing so only opens them to monopoly charges and infringes on consumer Fair Use rights.
There can only be one motivation for disarming a population - control. How long it takes to appear, to what degree, and in what form that control is realized, are the only variables.
In this case, I think Bush is the bully - the more I read about the days leading up to the invasion, the more I become convinced he would have found any reason do to so, the UN circus notwithstanding.
Copyrights that exist to infinity do not give anything back to the culture that has bought them: it is theft from the very culture that gave rise to the work. It is a violation of the contract that allowed the creator to benefit from their work. And since DRM'd works have no way for the DRM to cease functioning, that is an effective infinity. That is why DRM is theft.
I meant it in a more general sense, though - profit at all costs only benefits the rich - there is no basis for the 'trickle-down' effect or that increased corporate wealth results in increased overall wealth. And all of that completely misses the point of WHY humans spontaneously organize into tribes, villages, cities, nations, in the first place - for the mutual benefit of everyone involved. Humans are very bad at making a living in complete isolation - we depend on the combined work of the group for our survival.
I am not talking about Communism, which is a failed attempt at wealth distribution based on untenable assumptions - I am talking about the very simple fact that humans do better when they work with other humans. When one person is 1,000,000 times more wealthy than others in the group, to the point that others in the group have difficulty making even a basic subsistence, something is terribly wrong in the social equation - someone isn't putting in as much as they're taking out.
Now, I'm with you, I'm very mixed about the idea that profit should be taken from the rich and given to the poor. Inequity is also a basic fact of existence - if you were to somehow theoretically make every human in the world have exactly the same amount of money, the exact same possessions, and exact same access to resources, and then wait one day - you'd already find a massive shift of goods and wealth from one group to another, simply due to people's ability to freely associate and spontaneously organize. Inequity is a fact of existence as a consequence of limited resources. That part, I don't have a problem with. I have neither a problem with people being rich, nor with corporations making hefty profits.
It's the massive, extreme inequalities on the scale of 1,000,000:1 that result in massive-scale poverty that I have a problem with, because society is supposed to be for the benefit of everyone - it's why we build them. We're supposed to make a living together. It's the "profit at all costs" motive that erases that benefit and begins to benefit the few at the great expense of the many.
The solution isn't taxation, because that avoids the whole issue. The issue is that companies should be people first, profit second. If people first means the company goes bankrupt, then logic would dictate you let loose only the people you need to in order to restore balance. Protecting a profit margin while considering people nothing but 'resources' is a wholly irresponsible way to run a business, even if it does make the company and shareholders rich, arguments about growth and reinvestment notwithstanding - growth should not occur at the expense of society, lest we lose what gives society value in the first place.
I really hate sounding like a bleeding heart liberal, because I'm not and I did not come to these conclusions through exposure to liberal propoganda of any kind. I simply decided to stand back and watch people operate all by themselves, and see what happened, and it is the consequence of that observation that leads me to the things I say.
And I am, too. I derive a great deal more satisfaction out of prosperity I have earned, rather than what would be handed to me.
Oh, wait..
Nah. Re-read my original post - I did not hold him up as example, I borrowed one of his terms to explain what I meant.
Um, have you actually read his work or are you assuming that from what I've said here?
As for the rest of it I'm too lazy to look up the research right now, so for now I can agree to disagree. This is not a great forum for delving deeply into things like indigenous lifestyles and lifespans.
That said, even he has been making some decisions lately that strike my internal "Umm.. not so good" string. I sometimes wonder if it's the nature of the job, that one so far removed from their employees will eventually become that way, without trying, as a consequence of their aloof position rather than their personality.
That feeling of guilt arises from the knowledge that the company's profit margin will remain intact, while some people's ability to even feed their families will be shot to hell.
I don't even really fault the people who make these decisions (people like you.. you're doing your job and YOU will be fired if you don't - you have as little choice as the people you might end up firing).. I fault an economy that favors profit at all costs and a stock market that is punishingly unforgiving when a company's profit margin falls a mere 0.000000000034%.
I fault a country that has long since forgotten what making a living is all about, and what building a community, and a nation, is all about.
I'm all about profit. Profit can be a good thing.. but profit is not always a good thing, and that is what so many have long since forgotten.
The only difference between the new revision and the old one? One person's name had been added to the credits list.
Sick.
Seriously, they only do that to kill the used book market, and they do it on purpose. How dare those poor college students get something back from their books! Damn pirates..
Damn fine post. I'd give you mod points if I ever got any.
I always love people who delve into the meanings of words and present a very good treatment without resorting to terminology nobody understands.. very clear post, thanks!
And I've not just read Ishmael, either.. his other books are actually alot more useful in terms of understanding what he's trying to say, because they're alot more specific ("The Story of B" is one I think most people who get turned off by the telepathic ape, would like).
Poor:
poor
-adjective
1. having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare.
2. Law. dependent upon charity or public support.
3. (of a country, institution, etc.) meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds.
Poor as you're using it means people who don't have things like computers, telephones, cars, etc. Poor as I'm using it means the above referenced definition: people who are unable to support themselves and their families.
Our ancestors were poor in the sense YOU'RE using it - but having those kinds of possessions does not define wealth, it defines prosperity, a very different beast. And I'm not just playing semantics: poor has a very specific meaning, and I used it that way. You need to believe our ancestors were 'poor' in order to believe we're better, when the opposite was true - our ancestors were very good at providing for their own needs.
And just because you say it's so doesn't make it so (and the same goes for me, to be fair). Here's the thing: there is a finite number of resources on our planet - we cannot support an infinite population. And yet, our population grows by approximately 3% per year, and shows absolutely no signs of slowing (there are of course local variations, but the growth as a planetary whole continues unabated). This presents a problem - where are the resources going to come from? We can only cut down so many trees and destroy so many habitats before we compromise our own oxygen supply. We're already having to choose between using land for building houses and cities, and planting crops. That problem is only going to get worse so long as our population keeps growing.
There WILL be a point where we hit the ground, because it's a requirement of the fundamental laws of the universe - there aren't infinite resources and energy.
And that's not just 'end of the world talk.' Please. I'm a scientist at heart and an engineer by training. I do not make such statements without having a reason to believe them.
And your bias is so obvious it's suffocating - I never claimed Quinn is a philosopher, and if you ask him if he's one he'll laugh you off the planet.
And just because someone has an alternative opinion about our culture doesn't mean they hate our culture - that's also just you closing your mind to any idea that is different than the ones you accept.
a. Not eating meat is 'healthier'. The human biology is so varied that there is simply no objective basis for this statement. Some cultures do very well eating only meat; some get sick eating it. Any such statement would have to be restricted to a single group, and the method of selecting that group is still poorly understood (it's not just cultural - there is some speculation that blood type plays into one's ability to derive nutrition from certain foods, which would explain why blood type arose in the first place).
b. Vegetarians/vegans have less cancer. I have seen no conclusive evidence that meat eating alone makes the difference - evidence points to it as a piece of a larger puzzle in which vegetarians make other choices differently. And again, it's subject to the restrictions in point a.
c. It's unethical or immoral. I would really rather not start a flamewar on that subject, but I will say that I likewise have never seen a good argument for why humans should not eat meat, but it's ok for other animals to. Humans being a 'higher life form' doesn't cut it, because that's a very arrogant statement - higher relative to what, and based on what standard? Just because we KNOW we're killing an animal doesn't inherently make it wrong.
That aside though, it's just because animals exist and we like to eat them so we feed them so that we can eat them. There's no reason to make it more complicated than that, I agree - the parent just made stuff up, at least that's how it seemed to me.
What really muddies the waters is that there are an equal number of sorry excuses for being vegetarian/vegan. I don't understand why people aren't willing to just say "because I like it, ok?"
Tofurky is gross... garden burgers taste weird... now the Worthington Farms stuff, that stuff is awesome.
You know the truth of it.. I ate that 'imitation' stuff when it had just been invented (granted I was a child at the time so it's what my mom fed me). You know why the invented it? Because people used to make fun of vegetarians for not eating stuff that looked like beef and bacon. So.. they made it look like beef and bacon.
Eh.. I know, and while I understand the reasoning, I simply cannot accept its consequences in this case. $30,000,000 for 200 songs? That is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.. and that tells me there's something wrong with the law that allows it to be $30,000,000.
It would make more sense to judge based on actual damages and not on the industry's extortionist attempts at rewriting US copyright law. But, that's just me talking into the wind.
You also drink cows' milk because you've been brainwashed into thinking it's 'normal'.There's a reason we ween off mother's milk and why instances of lactose intolerance are so high.. after infancy we really don't need that source of nutrients. That said, thousands of human species throughout history have drunk animal milk of some sort. The Masai in Africa, for example, have remained relatively untouched for thousands of years and have herded cattle for drinking and slaughter during most of their history.
We drink cow milk rather than milk from other animals because at some point several thousand years ago, our ancestors figured out that cow's milk is the most chemically similar to human milk, and it would have been a nice milk supplement for babies when food sources were scarce and mothers couldn't produce breast milk.
We STILL drink cow's milk, pretty much for the same reason there are STILL laws on the books from 1793.. just because, it's always been that way. There's no malicious brainwashing involved.
Seriously, do you even bother to think about statements like that. What you're essentially saying is that eating meat equals getting cancer. So I suppose masterbation causes cancer too, and so does abortion, and so does believing in Allah instead of the Christian God? Ever since the advent of the word, 'cancer' has been used as a scapegoat to villify various groups' pet hate.
If you think about your statement more critically, you'll realize there are several alternatives to your statement: that non-vegetarians (not vegans - the studies only support the claim for a vegetarian diet) have fewer instances of cancer not because they don't eat meat, but because the alternative food choice also tends to come from a host of OTHER alternative choices - for example: fewer vegetarians smoke than do meat eaters. And maybe, just maybe, the instance of cancer has to do with how the animals are raised, and how the meat is cooked, rather than eating meat itself.
I am just throwing those ideas out there but really, your statement smacks of dogma and I do not take kindly to dogma.
And upon what, precisely, do you base such statements on? First, you'd have to define 'unnatural' relative to the word 'natural'; but the problem is, the word 'natural' just means everything. Everything is natural - it's a word without meaning.
That's the first problem with that statement.
Ok, you meant to use the word 'immoral' or 'unjust' or 'unethical' or whatever you would prefer to replace it with. But then you have to answer, based on what standard? What objective standard exists to say that HUMANS should not eat meat, but it's ok for the other species on the planet? You can't base it on a statement about human being a 'higher life form' because that means your answer is based on arrogance - higher relative to what? Just because you say so?
So we shouldn't eat meat simply because we're capable of refined language (not just language, but refined language) and writing and inventing computers?
The statement that it's unnatural or 'wrong' for humans to eat meat is based on grounds that are shakey at best and completely meaningless at worst. It's an argument I have never seen any reason in except that it allows some people to get really pissed off at others.
Eskimos, for example, have evolved to survive quite well on fish fats and proteins without any apparent need for things like fresh fruits and vegetables.
Other indigenous groups have evolved well to subsist on plant diets and become ill when eating meat (of which I am apparently a descendent, because I become very ill when I try to eat meat).
I think it is fair to say that some humans need some foods, and other humans need other foods, and given that 12-20,000 years is not nearly enough time for our biology to have evolved to different nutritional requirements than our caveman ancestors had, it is ridiculous to say that we have different requirements for survival than our ancestors did.
And this statement, when applied to the morality of eating meat, already assumes that eating meat is a 'bad thing', and is thus not itself an argument in favor of not eating meat.
I generally feel healthier eating a vegetarian diet, but I don't get enough protein (it's pretty hard for vegetarians to get enough protein..) so the soy-based stuff is a nice replacement. Plus I like them.
That said, I do periodically eat chicken, a)because I still worry I don't get enough protein and b)it's pretty hard to find a decent meal at a restaurant that doesn't have meat in it (although that has been getting better recently). And I just put up with the bathroom discomfort.
I've never had any kind of ideology for being vegetarian; and aside from a few specific reasons, I don't think vegetarianism as a moral ideology makes much sense. The one argument that has ever made sense to me is people who don't eat meat because they don't like how the animals are raised - that has more to do with how the animal is treated, and less to do with minding that it gets killed for food.
I just about leapt out of my chair when I read your post - Ahhhhhh it's refreshing to finally see someone who gets it!
We have this utterly false belief that we're somehow climbing some kind of evolutionary/civilizational ladder and that at some point we'll get to the top and be gods, when we're doing nothing of the sort - all we're doing is moving wealth [e.g., resources] around to make some people look wealthier, happier, and others end up being dirt poor.
We're the equivalent of a mindless drone committing suicide by jumping off a tall building - so long as we are in the air, and we keep flapping our arms, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're flying - until we hit the ground.
And we WILL hit the ground, because the universe is a harsh mistress.. and doesn't take kindly to childish races foolishly believing they can live above the laws of life and get away with it.
I think my favorite part of your post, though, was this...
Our culture is the descendence of what Daniel Quinn calls Takers... a culture that has taken into its own hands the power to say who lives and who dies, to dictate the right way to live for everyone, everywhere, and that foolishly believes itself immune from the requirements of the natural world that we depend on for survival.