> What you are trying to do is impose a moral scale, a ranking, on life that says that taking this life is moral but taking this one is not.

So, I'll try to get this straight. Please set me straight if I have any of this wrong.

You're asserting that in moral terms, ALL LIFE is equal, completely regardless of its nervous system, capacity to perceive the world, form social connections, experience emotion, or suffer. For example, a herd of cows should be given exactly the same ethical consideration as a leaf of spinach: none whatsoever. Right? Because humans have a moral mandate to kill. And since all nonhuman life is equally worthless in these ethical terms, according to our moral mandate, we are allowed to destroy as much life as we please in order to eat what we'd like. Deciding if I want to be responsible for the "death" of a few beans or some spinach, or be responsible for a lifetime of captivity ended by a violent death of a cow (not to mention all the "plant death" that was necessary to make it grow in the first place).

Except humans. We can't kill each other, because we can acknowledge rights for each other.

What would you say about very young children and or mentally handicapped humans who don't have the mental capacity to "respect and protect the rights of others?" If this is where rights come from, then obviously not all humans have rights. Or is there more to it than just that?

> The arbitrary categorization of one life as more valuable than another is not made for moral reasons. It cannot be because morality is binary. A choice is either moral or immoral.

Please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that there is no gradient of morality. While you're at it, please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that if you must kill something, then you're justified in killing anything you want.

Actually, if you could cite anything to support your position, instead of just asserting things, that would be great! In particular, I'd love to see any credible ethical argument that all nonhuman life should be treated exactly equally in ethical terms.

> If this theory is true then the pure herbivores of our species did not survive natural selection - the omnivores proved better adapted for survival.

So, we should take our ethical cues from natural selection, then? I thought you said earlier that we shouldn't.

Regarding "human efficiency," what do you think of the environmental destruction caused by animal agriculture? Or, if human efficiency is only measured on an individual scale, how is it affected by the mounting evidence that eating animals isn't so great? (each word is a distinct link.) What about the antibiotics issue? Please address this.

> Yes - if both animals and plants suffer and several lives have been given already to create the animal then the animal causes the least loss of life and the least suffering. How many plants do you have to slaughter and digest screaming to equal one animal?

You said earlier that plants can't scream. And can't suffer. And the answer, once more with feeling, is: about a 10:1 ratio! Remember? I linked those wikipedia articles for you! Did you read them?

Which reminds me, I've been careful to only cite things that are reasonably "impartial": news articles, PubMed, wikipedia, that sort of thing. Nothing from the Humane Society or anything like that, since I imagine that you'll probably just dismiss it. If you'd be willing to read those things seriously, then by all means let me know and I'll share a few. And if you wouldn't mind addressing some of the things that those linked articles address, I'd appreciate it.

I'll go back a couple posts of yours, if you don't mind, because I forgot to address this point:

> The animal would have eaten the plants regardless of your decision. By eating the animal you are not participating in the death or the potential suffering of the plants.

Yes you are! You've paid for the animal to be bred, raised, fed, and slaughtered. You are contributing to the demand for this process. Are you claiming that by supporting something financially is completely divorced from all ethical responsibility? Please explain this, since I don't understand this view.

> Farming an animal for food is not torture. Torturing an animal for the sake of seeing it suffer is morally wrong.

Well, if you're in America, more than 99% of the time it is. Is it permissible to torture an animal to eat it more cheaply?

Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals, by the way, is an excellent and very honest investigation of the ethics of eating meat. It's written from the perspective of someone who's oscillated between eating meat and not eating it for his life so far, and I hope you'll believe me when I say that it is absolutely not judgmental of those who do. There's no way around the fact that it's been a human tradition for a very long time, and there's a great deal of sentimentality around it, and this book approaches the subject with great intellectual and moral honesty. I hope you'll at least consider reading it, if you would like to, I'd even be happy to send you my copy in the mail (although I'd probably be unwilling to give out my address over the internet), and you can keep it after that. And if you're right about the ethics of it, you'll blast through it in a few days and come away completely unchanged, since your position is totally bulletproof. If there's no threat, all you have to lose is a few hours of reading time. And, if you don't want to read anything, he's given a couple brief interviews 1, 2, 3, 4 that you can watch in a few minutes (the longest is an hour).

And of course, since I'm suggesting some reading material for you (I hope you're actually reading those articles by the way... it's hard to tell, since you haven't address any of them except the ADA abstract, which you dismissed with an appeal to nature), it's only fair that if you recommend any books or articles or films to me at all, I solemnly swear to read (or watch) them with an open mind. I'll even get back to you about what I think!

I think it's extremely telling that the industry has fought so hard to pass laws against documenting abuse in their operations. Would you agree that given a choice between cheap meat that has been raised in torturous conditions, and expensive meat that was raised in a way to give the animal a good life while it was alive, one has a moral obligation to choose the one that caused less suffering? This, I expect, is in line with your moral mandate to kill. After all:

> Certainly limiting the amount of pain inflicted is a desirable choice.

Try this: go to your refrigerator, and look at the label for the animal flesh you already have in there. See what farm it's from, and look up a phone number. Give them a call, and pretend that you're interested in taking a tour of their facilities to see the conditions. Then, when you're at the farmer's market, find someone selling meat and ask if it would be possible to go see the farm sometime.

Look, I don't want to be hostile. Clearly we disagree on some very fundamental things (like the notion that suffering has anything at all to do with ethical decisions) but I want to be very clear that I'm not trying to pick a fight or belittle you in any way. I just find some (most, frankly) of your views baffling, heartless, and honestly, pretty terrifying. But honest discussion is the whole point of CMV, right? And, I'd like to encourage you again to cite anything to justify your assertion that plants and animals should be given exactly the same ethical consideration (none). And again, please cite anything at all to support the notion that the capacity to suffer is of no moral consequence.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to your reply. I've tried to be very clear about the points I'd like you to address, and hopefully I succeeded.

I feel it's wrong to judge a person on what they choose to wear or not wear.

>I think many muslim women mistakenly use Islam to justify an institution that's historically a cultural thing - from when women had even less rights than they do now.

Yes, some women do so. Not all of them. Do you get upset at a girl who wears a sweater to church? Do you get upset at nuns clothing? Traditional nun clothing covers all but the face for different religious meanings. They do this for their religion, are you against them too?

I'm a feminist and I am against sexism. But it is sexist to presume that a woman wears a certain article of clothing solely because of patriarchy. It's like assuming that a woman wears a bikini solely because of patriarchy-because the female body is "sexualized" and in order to be considered "beautiful" you need to show off a "fit body". May I point out-I'm not against bikinis either and often wear them. My point is, assuming a woman wears an article of clothing because of males contributes to patriarchy even more since it is taking the freedom of expressing your body in whatever way you want.

I know some muslim females who dress this way. Some women feel it as a sign of controlling their own self-identity. Instead of showing off their body, they hide it and save it for the right person. When they have the hijabs on, the only thing another person (of both sexs) could identify them for is their eyes and their personality. One girl isn't compared to another, because there's nothing to compare. You don't become a girl who has boob boobs or a girl who has small boobs, you aren't known as a girl who has a little belly or a girl who bones stick out. Stretch marks, birthmarks, paleness, tanness, uneven body portions, ect-all can't be hold against you because no one sees it. Some girls like this. They like how they can't be objectified or sexualized by any peer.

I'm all for loving your body, but you should be able to express it anyway you want. Some girls don't want to be expressed by the appearance of their body meanwhile other girls like embracing their bodies. Wearing a hijabs is not about whether women should wear them, whether women should cover up. When it is by choice, it can involve a lot of different matters. If you are still against this, than it's like being against any woman who prefers to dress more conservatively. It's like being against any woman who doesn't choose to express her body in the way that you do. Not all hijabs-wearing women judge you by your clothing, why should you judge them?

I recommend never judging a person by their clothing. Listen to their ideals and opinions first. I can guarantee you that there is at least some women who wear hijabs who aren't like what you claim. Please don't undermine a woman's freedom of choice and self expression. The moment we start judging each other, the moment sexism wins.

Edit:I posted this in another comment, but I'll repost it here for OP too.

Tamora Pierce, a wonderful female heroine author (and my favorite author) has two short stories in her book, Tortall and Other Lands: A collection of Tales that address this issue. In Elder Brother, it shows the view that you share. In The Hidden Girl, it shows a very enlightening opposing viewpoint on why a girl might want to wear something like a hijab. This female character is not weak. She is actually a feminist rebel for her people. She prefers to wear the hijab and says it gives her power. I recommend checking out both stories.

I put very little stock in the concept of gender, but I'll use whatever pronouns a person asks me to. Let's call it the "Don't Be An Asshole Principle" -- if something is important to someone else but not to you, respect the fact that they care about it, instead of treating everyone as if they share your values.

I find myself influenced by the book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", by Beverly Daniel Tatum. It's been more than a few years since I've read it, but the message I took away was about how much youth and teenage years are about finding our place in the world, how we fit into the fabric of society. To a degree this happens throughout life, though the most intense searching happens in those transition years, where we're becoming an adult.

I personally find the entire concept of gender about as useless as you find additional genders beyond male and female. The whole social construct seems pretty specious to me. But I recognize that it's a way of processing and making sense of the world, a way of finding our place and making peace with society; the concept is intended to reconcile the social baggage that comes with being "male" and "female" by creating a separate division from anatomical sex, so that they become separate axes, permitting people to find a description that seems to fit them more easily.

But again, I find it pretty empty. In my mind, gender is sort of like defining geeks vs goths vs jocks as a central and important part of a person's self-image. It's not a "real" axis, just a description of some social conventions, and it's by no means comprehensive of all human society. To me, someone who identifies as "agender" or otherwise rejects the standard gender dichotomy is doing nothing more than just rejecting the social conventions and expectations that come with being male or being female. It's like everyone wants to call them goth, but they really don't identify with that scene at all; they don't identify with any of the standard cliques, so they carve something out that they feel comfortable with, call it emo, and then ask others to respect that to help craft the expectations and assumptions others will have about them.

So I personally identify as cisgendered male, not because I put any stock in gender as an inherently extant thing which matters outside its presence as (what I perceive to be) a completely fake social category, but because others find it useful and they want to know how to treat me. I say treat me like all the other guys. Though I wouldn't really care if the treated me like a girl or something else because I don't give a shit.

The thing is, I also respect that it does matter to some people. They don't identify with the categories presented to them, and are alienated by the gender constructs that we've created as a society, so they're finding their place by defining new categories. I get that and I practice the non-asshole principle of respecting what is important to other people.

I'm a Christian and a scientist. I struggle with questions like yours often and find myself returning to belief after each
'wrestling match'. As /u/sunnyEl-ahrairah said, this kind of wrestling is a good thing. If God exists, he wants us to use our minds.

Food for thought, as I certainly don't have all the answers:

>How do I know I have the right God? Maybe I only believe in the American Jesus... While another part of the world believes in Vishnu. What if they're right? It seems like it's just fixed on wherever you are....

It comes down to the person of Jesus. Who was he? The actual son of God, a malicious liar, or a crazy person? This is CS Lewis' famous 'Lord, Liar, Lunatic' argument, you may have heard it. The answer is a matter of belief and faith -- is the Bible reliable testimony? Does it quote him accurately? The things he claimed couldn't have been made by a mere 'good man'. So who was he? Figuring that out has to be part of your search for God.

>How does the physical world reconcile with scripture (genesis, when read literal, appears to deny evolution)?

A literal interpretation? It can't. Reading the Bible out of context, translated into English, and without considering the culture just does not square with the discoveries of science. But modern cosmology and evolution can both be squared nicely with the Bible, especially when recognizing that those chapters in Genesis match well with someone's vision of we see today. Check out Francis Collins' (former head of Human Genome Project) book The Language of God for one perspective. You might also be interested in Hugh Ross, a pastor and astrophysicist, and his website Reasons to Believe.

>If there is a god, and he created all of this, isn't he just a powerful alien? How is religion really that different from science fiction?

Aliens would be within the Universe, God outside of it. Aliens would be in the same boat that we are, part of creation. We define God as the Creator, separate from the rest of Universe (somehow!).

>How can someone who created the universe care about me individually? I've started to feel like that is just brought in to encourage the peasants to listen to the church.

It's a mindblowing idea, especially in light of the size of the Universe, and it takes faith.

Some things that I see that convince me that there is design to the Universe and a Creator (apart from the Bible):

• The existence of the Universe - something from nothing?? - with all the right constants to form galaxies, stars, planets... us.
  
• DNA Transcription and other biomechanical processes
  
• The apparent independent existence of mathematics -- mathematicians debate whether we invent math or discover it.
  
• The existence of human consciousness, unlike anything we know elsewhere in the Universe (so far)
  
  All of these highly ordered things exist in a Universe that tends toward disorder, entropy. With those in mind, it's actually easier for me to believe that God exists than doesn't. How he might interact with humans is a whole big other question, and that's where I consider the case of Jesus and my own observations of love, inherent right and wrong, and the arc of human history.

That isn't what racism is. Racism is prejudice or discrimination rooted in a belief of superiority of one race over another. That there are differences in the world navigated by black people and the work navigated by white people that puts different standards on behavior isn't racist, it's culturally responsive.

We all navigate our personal worlds recognising that there are groups we are part of and groups that we are not,and adjust our behavior accordingly. You speak differently with your friends than with your parents, and cringe when your parents try to speak with you and your friends the way way you do, because it rings false, coming across as them play-acting at being part of your group. Parents tpyically love their kids to death, and kids love their parents, but your parents and your friends are different. And you may see your black and white friends as just your friends, but I guarantee your black friends see you as their white friend, because your life is not their life and your culture is not their culture. In the same manner, a rich kid may just have friends, one of whom is poor, but guaranteed that poor person views them as their rich friend, different from their other friends. This is part of the way in which privilege plays out. Those with it often don't recognize its role in insulating them from harsher aspects of life common to those without it.

The N-word was and is used to denigrate and dehumanize blacks by whites. The current internal use of it in black culture can be viewed as a cultural identifier that says, "Hey, we're in this together, dealing with the past and currentjust trying to live our lives while a lot of white people still don't see us as individuals, but just another, n-word." You aren't part of that culture and can't be, because society at large doesn't view you as black or treat you as such. So you don't get to play you are and then complain that people are being racist when they tell you you're acting inappropriately at best, and veering towards abetting racism.

They may tell you they don't sit in the student section because it isn't cool, but the deeper reason is that they probably don't feel comfortable. There are a lot of reasons that could exist for that. What percentage of your school's teachers are black? What percentage of the administrators are black? What percentage of your student government is black? Does your school have a dress code that specifically targets dress or hairstyles common within their communities? Being a majority isn't what matters. What matters is having a voice, having a say, and having ownership. You see it as your school, but do they, or is it just a school that they attend.

You should read, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria: and other conversations about race.

Well, that's asking for investment advice from some stranger on the internet, and you should obviously never take investment advice from some stranger over the internet without using your own brain.

Also, right now is a tough time anyways. As you might know the stock market jumped up (a bit at least) right after the Fed announced to keep the quantitative easing coming. This was almost "marketed" in the media as if it's a good thing, but it was almost certainly inverters "fleeing" the dollar more than anything else, as shown by the quick decline shortly after.

I guess precious metals are a pretty safe bet, or stocks in mining company's. But it will always be you vs. the market in these types of situations.

That said (and perhaps therefore) I'm a Black Swan type of guy myself. I'd rather invest in a bunch of things that might either go to the moon or crash and burn, instead of investing it all in a "certain" 3% profit a year. (Especially since there's no such thing as certainty these days.) And even then you should probably not risk more than ~20% of your net worth in Black Swans - not at the same time anyways. Probably less, even.

Right now I think Bitcoin has got to be the most promising Black Swan. It will either be worth a lot in ten years time or it will be worth nothing at all. Big risk - huge potential pay-off. I know, the word "bitcoin" brings up a lot of scepticism in a lot of people, it almost rhymes with "dotcom-bubble". But just watch the video I linked to, it's not that long.

However, whatever you do, DO NOT, invest all of your money in bitcoin, or do so at your own risk. Even 1% of your net worth should be more than enough. But most importantly, do your own research.

In my posts when i say "absolute power" i have dictatorship next to it. It is impossible for a democracy (shared power) to have absolute power. It is a oxymoron. If you are talking about a democracy that has a coup d'etat that would be different. The overthrow could temporarily have absolute power and then set in place a democracy but that is just splitting hairs. Just because there are check and balances doesn't mean that we should feel safe about it. A small group of top officials could make a secret Oligarchy; the idea is plausible. Another example would be using political power to pressure constituents.

When a president goes with the majority, he is using absolute power because there is no enough opposition to the contrary of that ruling; the morality of the majority is a different question all together. Such as like over in Africa right now. The idea of a majority ruling with values you don't agree with that can persecute you is what some would fear. Those that might trade their freedom for perceived security can lead to the erosion of actual rights; even though on the door it says your all free. Does anybody remember how our own history has been in regards to the minority? Before i catch hell, i love my country and wouldn't want to be anywhere else... i just am not going to try and excuse horrible actions?

Does anyone remember when we gave smallpox blankets to the indians? Gave them land and kicked them off after we found valuable natural resources, and then relocated them to somewhere else all the while stripping their culture/identity/beliefs away and converting them? Women didn't have a right to vote til the early 1900's? and African Americans? What about a African American woman? We could go on with Civil rights, Gay rights, the internment camps after Pearl Harbor for Asian looking people, or those who were Muslim and jailed for looking Muslim after 9/11? Electrolytes, because that is what the majority craves.

Martial Law has been some concerns since it can suspend rights which opens the possibility (however unlikely) of a process to absolute power (and eventually a country not of the people). [Here is a thread that would be more knowledgeable than me.]http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cv0d4/has_martial_law_ever_been_declared_in_the_us_and/)
Turkey right now has a whole set of issues related to how the majority wants their government and how those in power would like to have it.

The abusive power doesn't have to always be negative; there are plenty of politicians that use their power to cut through the politics to help others. They are still abusing their position; even though it helps others (e.g., build roads, create jobs, individual rights). People who are sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists believe they are doing something 'good'; they truly believe it in their minds; also those types of high profile jobs are attractive for those types of personalities which allows the abuse of power.

What about Nigeria? Kenya has elected governors and i have heard you can't get anything done efficiently through customs without the need to bribe everyone.

[I wasn't talking of "something"... i stated very specifically the condition: that someone (a human being that has a known disposition in surviving within their environment) will abuse (take advantage) of their power (serves the self interest of that person and possibly others as long as it satisfies the first condition) I did not state that 'if' i throw this ball in the air it will 'always' come down. Since that deals with external factors such as gravity/location/attached to something etc... Human behavior is more predictable and has been modeled over enough to show it is inevitable that people will maximize the outcomes of their situation. Before you try the altruism route, let me say that altruists feel rewarded by helping others; it is self serving dopamine response even if it serves others. Mother Teresa is a bad example (before anyone brings it up).

Ask yourself how many languages are on this earth. How many religions/gods? How big is earth compared to the entire universe? Armed with this knowledge is it possible that this outcome has happened before in over 200,000 years of Homo Sapiens being around each other? Maybe their groups were small democracies? Now compare 200,000 years of which 2500 years is a little over 1 percent (Greek democracy 500 b.c.?)... So can it happen over the next 200,000 years if we are still around? What is the basis of this never happening? Is it because you believe it will never happen? Are you just looking for 1 example in 200,000 years of history to change your mind to it having possibly happened or a arbitrary length of time extended in the future? Is the condition that you are talking only of "our" democracy (United States) or of the system of Democracy? How do we know as outside the 'system' whether a charade is being played in front of us or not? How would we be able to tell that someone is ruling with absolute power in a democracy? I am not talking paranoia, just bringing up questions to give personal reflection on the issue.

A good read "The Black Swan" by Nassim Taleb. This topic really doesn't apply, but the fundamental thought is applicable.

Read or download the audiobook of Malcom Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point"; his other books are awesome also... I can't recommend him highly enough.

Why societies collapse: Ted Talks with Jared Diamond

Please read this before replying about any human behavioral matters The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely

tl;dr "No one is saying that you've broken any laws, Mr. President... We're just saying it's a little weird that you didn't have to." -- John Oliver on PRISM

I mean... what you claimed is analogous to:

1. Favorite colors are subjective
   
2. There are no favorite colors.
   
   > Please go ahead and link me to the literature claiming that objective morality exists.
   
   Have you heard of Kant? The vast majority of moral philosophy since Kant is positivist. Consequentialism, utilitarianism, realism, cognitivism, humanism, etc.
   
   

• Kant http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-prolegomena-cambridge.pdf
  
  
• Nagel https://books.google.com/books/about/What_Does_It_All_Mean_A_Very_Short_Intro.html?id=Nz_XMrjBQEUC
  
  
• Harris https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X
  
  
• Aristotle https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwi15MyouJ3lAhUReIYKHegkBy0YABADGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_21788sEwZMxKR6XQV75vb2z30EeA&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjVyMOouJ3lAhXnwVkKHfmUCPoQwg8IPw&adurl=
  
  
• Plato https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwilgKC6uJ3lAhUZh4YKHYblBf4YABAEGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3YfFiJI7vTwB33w_dRIJD3gqWUDw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwi1ipa6uJ3lAhUl01kKHe0pDs4Qwg8IOg&adurl=
  
  
• https://books.google.com/books/about/Critique_of_Pure_Reason.html?id=7bRychF0y0EC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
  
  
• Kagan https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Morality-Oxford-Ethics/dp/0198239165
  
  
• Bentham https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjh7M3Mt53lAhWahVoFHb0wAKUYABABGgJ2dQ&sig=AOD64_3mWpjrlKMHHZMoM__CmFus8jO4xw&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjB5sXMt53lAhWpq1kKHQJaDPkQwg8IOA&adurl=
  
  
• Kierkegaard https://www.amazon.com/Either-Fragment-Life-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140445773
  
  
  > I refer you back to my last comment. An individual can believe that something is moral but not be obligated by it. I am certain that you are not obligated to do every single thing that you believe to be moral.
  
  Then you aren’t a moral agent right? And if you are a moral agent, then to be a rational actor you’d have to act rationally. To be a rational actor, are you obligated to act rationally?
  
  PS do you want me to write a summary of why moral realism is so prevalent so you don’t have to read them all? It’s super straightforward logically.

The internet is a very good place to go for people who are very worried about what other people believe. It's not so good at changing anyone's behavior, since you can't observe others' behavior through a computer. But you sure can tell people they are wrong and demand that they agree.

That means that the vegans you're encountering online aren't representative of all vegans. They're just the vegans who are very worried about what they and other people believe. By definition, that's not going to be a very humble subset of vegans.

Most vegans change other people's minds far away from the internet. They do it by simply purchasing, preparing, and eating vegan food, and when asked why they eat that way, explaining their position simply and without judgement.

> I also can't mention to anyone I know that I'm eating vegan because of the obvious social consequences.

I don't know if that's true. I don't think many people experience social consequences for their diet alone. Here's what I do if I don't want to talk about my reasons for being vegetarian, but someone asks me. I say, "Oh, you know--the usual reasons." If they press, I say, "Animal rights, environmental impact, that kind of thing." And I always go out of my way to explain that I "just ate less meat" for a while before becoming a full vegetarian. And also make sure I compliment others' omnivorous meals so people know I'm not judging anything as personal as their diet.

There's a wonderful book called Eating Animals whose author, I think, takes a very reasonable and humble approach to the ethics of eating meat.

> but it seems that we as a people want to have sex more than we care about the potential consequences.

No, people weigh the risks vs the benefits and are not convinced that the risks outweigh the benefits. Does birth control have the occasional side effect? Yes. Are condoms 100% effective? No. But the majority of the time when someone practices safe sex is something going to go horribly wrong? No. It's very probable that if you practice safe sex you will be perfectly fine.

Also there is no such thing as sex addiction

The best answer to that is with a large portion of the population caring for some dogs, caring about the abuse of dogs under other's care, it becomes too morally confusing to eat other dogs.

Some one else referenced Some we love, some we hate, some we eat, and it really is just the fact that these need to be distinct categories for things to be simple.

There is proof of dogs being humans companions for thousands of years (last I remember, don't have a source), and dogs have been beneficial companions. So that decision has just been made through time, and there really is no reason to change it. Except it is different in different cultures, and that also stays the same.

It depends on how you consider the usefulness of credentials.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652 Caplan makes some very good points against that idea.

Additionally, higher education has a lot of rhetoric about producing rounded individuals, not experts. There's no reason to think that one couldn't focus on a subject on their own and gain some level of expertise.

It all comes down to how you define "expert."

Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed introduces a number of these essential concepts and goes a little into the background, and really finds the edges of the thing by finding those cases where they fall apart completely. I also think that it has the right overall tone to not repulse someone with an anarchic bent. There are better surveys from an academic perspective, but legibility is important.

How do you interpret this quote?

" I read Betty Friedan’s book [The Feminine Mystique] because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby. "

Richard Lynn's work in his book demonstrates the racial disparity in intelligence: https://smile.amazon.com/IQ-Wealth-Nations-Richard-Lynn/dp/027597510X?sa-no-redirect=1

The study I linked proves the heritability/genetic component of intelligence.

> The action to document basic informations about every citizen is essential in my mind in order to properly manage the country

What about the countries where this information isn't kept (e.g. the UK, or most other common law countries)? Are they not properly managed?

It's certainly true that governments tend to want to create these sorts of databases, but that doesn't mean they're essential. Seeing Like A State even makes a compelling argument that such schemes tend to be largely detrimental as they always require squeezing a complex reality into an over-simplified structure.

Speaking for myself - I enjoy being mildly drunk. It makes me cuddly and giggly and happy, and it makes it easier to bond with people emotionally. I have strong vibrant friendships whose original development was substantially assisted by the presence of alcohol.

Which is to say: there are benefits, for some (many) people, even while there are detriments for some (many) people. It's not clear to me that the balance is on the side of the detriments; it's just that the connection there is more obvious.

> We could jack up the prices.

That only works so far.

As prices for legal alcohol increase, you substantially increase the likelihood of a secondary, illegal market developing. There's already a market in illicit cigarettes (it's not uncommon, for example, for people in California to drive to NV to buy trunkloads full of cigarettes at a lower tax rate, and then bring them back into California to sell to their friends). What that price point is varies with time and place, but it definitely exists, and the last thing we want to do is encourage the development of large-scale organized crime gangs devoted to the distribution of cheap illicit alcohol.

> Or we could treat it like smoking and have ads such as "alcohol kills", "second hand alcohol is even worse"

We could. The thing is, though, that so many people drink that this would not be believed.

There's a program in the american schools, or at least there was when I was a kid, to encourage kids to stay off of drugs. It was called DARE ("drug abuse resistance education", i think) when I was in high school. It worked great for a while, but it seriously exaggerated the harm from marijuana use ... which meant that as soon as any of us tried marijuana and discovered the exaggerations, everything they had said became unbelievable. Exaggerated ads about how horrible alcohol is would have the same effect; people who use alcohol regularly, and people who have used it casually and suffered no problems, will see it for a lie, and will respond by distrusting the speaker's word on other things.

May I suggest that you read this book? http://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Rise-Fall-Prohibition/dp/074327704X

It's a great exploration of the prohibition movement and why (and how) it succeeded as a political program and then failed horribly as a practical policy.

Second this, and for a really fascinating further read on this, strongly suggest Last Call by Daniel Okrent.

Fixed your link

I hope I didn't jump the gun, but you got your link syntax backward! Don't worry bro, I fixed it, have an upvote!

• Tortall and Other Lands: A collection of Tales
  
  
  
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> This is something I have a hard time with. Primarily because I hate myself. I hate the person that I am. I blame myself for what happened in my previous relationship. Ya, she was the one that cheated, but it was me who wasn't fulfilling her needs, whether I realized it or not.

It's not your fault. Personal responsibility is a great thing, you need to recognize that her choices are her choices. You do not control them.

If you want to turn your life around, start your path to self-improvment with No More Mr. Nice Guy: http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339

Francis Collins (human genome project, current director of NIH) is also an evangelical Christian. He wrote this book about science and faith: https://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744

Do you even read your "sources"?

CIA AND FBI NOT WORKING TOGETHER. CONSPIRACY!

THE US GOVERNMENT USES THINK TANKS THAT HAVE FORMER POLITICANS AND EX-MILITARY! THE CABAL GOES DEEPER THAN WE THOUGHT!

No, organizations "defending their turf" is one of the biggest management roadblocks inside and outside the government. Even units inside the CIA and FBI often don't work together. It's human nature.

And of course the government is going to use foreign policy think tanks staffed by former goverment and private foreign policy experts. (And non experts, they can certainly be incompetent). I mean duh.

I know I don't have the time to waste on reading this inane BS. All it is is a bunch of (often dubious) correlations that are supposed to advance an agenda. I'll stick with reading actual sources like The Looming Tower or Ghost Wars

There's a really excellent book I read about the psychology involved with our inconsistent views on animals.

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Harzog

It's very fascinating and definitely worth the read. I usually have a harder time reading a non-fiction book cover to cover but I couldn't put this one down.

Basically, Herzog breaks the animal kingdom into three categories:

• Some we love - pets, companion animals, etc
  
  
• Some we hate - animals that we have contempt for - pests - creatures considered unclean, and associated with filth
  
  
• Some we eat - livestock - animals for human consumption
  
  The way we think about animals changes completely based on these categories. An animal can usually be put in one of these groups, and there's rarely any crossover or ambiguity. These divisions do change however across cultures, but the book is mostly about modern Western ideas on animals.

Non-mobile: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400030846/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/183-0250526-6017932

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

Them how do you explain the thousands of “black” slave owners in the American south? https://www.amazon.com/Black-Slaveowners-Masters-Carolina-1790-1860/dp/0786469315/ref=nodl_

This is the book in question. I linked to an article about it elsewhere in the comment chain, but this is the book that is the source of the quote. It is by a former President of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

When asked about the book in 1999, Trump said "The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true." Here's a link for that.

The reason why I noticed this is that Bryan Caplan recently published a book (which I didn't read, but which I read about quite a bit) making this signalling point: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652

I have a book for you to read...

They had a surveillance state and it was effective...

Really? you think it was dubious?.

http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Wealth-Nations-Richard-Lynn/dp/027597510X

You may be interested in reading Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. He takes the position that scientific inquiry can identify and evaluate moral systems, using human well-being as the metric for measurement.

Many professional philosophers have criticized his work, and there are many others who disagree with him, but you may find the book to be very relevant to your inquiry.

Yes, all the way up until the war, there were thousands of slaveholders who themselves had been slaves. https://www.theroot.com/did-black-people-own-slaves-1790895436/amp

And there is a book just about “black” slave owners in SC: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Slaveowners-Masters-Carolina-1790-1860/dp/0786469315

The one thing that I want to touch on, this isn't a wholly original view, but I just want to give my experience.

There are things in life which we need to do, such as sleep. If we don't sleep, we become overworked and stressed causing our productivity to fall exponentially. The more work we put in, the less productive that work gets. Needing a work life balance is real. Unfortunately, it's something which most companies fail to grasp. The idea of time being proportional with productivity is so ingrained within our society that even when there are numerous studies and books which demonstrate that a happy worker is a productive worker companies are slow on the draw. If this were a high noon shootout, companies would have been dead before even firing the first round. That's how sluggish they are.

Now, some companies have begun to catch on and have been trying to use mindfulness to forcefully up the productivity of their workers with little success in some places. They don't understand that to make their workers happy, they need to give them good working conditions.

So, you can see how parenthood draws into this. Being a parent can be a fulfilling experience, at the very least it gives people purpose which helps them to become more productive. By making that job harder, those who want to have children pay a higher price to have them. That's just assuming that both genders get the same leave though, this isn't true of all places. In America, this is a bit of a gendered issue because men don't get nearly as much parental leave as women do, this is highly damaging to society for multiple reasons;

1. Boys grow up without a strong masculine figure in their lives creating a whole generation of men feel abandoned by their fathers. (Reading if you're interested.)
   
   
2. Women have the stress of having to rear a young child almost entirely on their own.
   
   
3. Adds to men's isolation in society since they spend so much time at work that they can barely see their families.
   
   If the board of a company considers recent studies and gender dynamics they'll see that the system that is currently in place is not only unsustainable, it hurts their profits. They don't tap into the productivity that women have to give; men get depressed and lose productivity due to isolation and being rather overworked. It's counterproductive if not poison for society as a whole. The majority of the world understands this, America has having a really hard time keeping up for some reason.
   
   You'd think that businesses would be better at maximising profits. You might say "pah, you idealist. You don't know how the real world works" Indeed, some companies like google get it more right. Need I remind you that they're one of the biggest companies in the world? So big that it's actually a problem because they can easily shut down their competition by forcing them out of the market or by assimilating them? They also implement mindfulness, but they do it so make the lives of their employees better and not just so that they create a more productive employee which ends up happening in the process.
   
   So as you can see, Trump is so wrong. There's a tremendous business opportunity here, but he's too ignorant to capitalise on it. You'd think a big-shot millionaire would get it right. If he was so smart he'd make all of that money if it was taken away from him. Wrong. He's so dumb that a sack of fucking oranges has a better chance at a rags to riches story than he does.
   
   It's the number one rule of good business thinking: don't see an inconvinence, see an opportunity. If you don't understand that then you're not fit for profit.

> How is a response by definition not a prediction?

Prediction, by definition, precedes the event predicted.

>How is this needless to say? This also isn't a prediction.

the cultural revolution was the slaughter of millions orchestrated by Mao. There was nothing democratic about it.

>4) That was only a side point. I just mentioned it because you misunderstood what I originally meant.

in other words, you were wrong, nad don't want to admit it.

>ot. People can believe whatever they want. I just think that studying power is more useful than studying fiction.

Then you should try actually studying power, and stop reading fiction.

>There was NOTHING and then something was created out of that.
The latter is foolish. There can not be "nothing", no existence of any kind, but if you are an atheist you must believe that it is true. Telling me that there was nothing makes absolutely zero sense and makes you look as foolish as the (religious) creationists you mock.

While I don't refute your view that it's foolish to assert to know definitively that there's a God or not with 100% clarity, I got an issue with this point of yours. It's incomplete. It's possible to have a valid and sound hypothesis of the origins of the universe that does not require a God of any kind.

Read the book A universe from nothing by a leading astrophysicist from MIT. There's also a
video lecture by him discussing this same point. It discusses just how empty empty space is (hint: it's not) and how mathematically provable that our universe could have sprung from nothing.

In the end, you can't prove or disprove the existence of God. You may only adapt a world-view that includes a higher power or not.

I hope you took away that some people aren't as naive as you make them out to be.

While we're making book recommendations, you should try this, this, or this. Or maybe these, or this, or hell, this if my summary of the current situation of the state as universal malefactor and the alternatives as looking better every day are unconvincing to you.

As for some misguided belief that the people will "rise up" in some faux revolution with onward marching and people's councils and all that kind of jazz; not at all, generally speaking, people are stupid. For example those that think that it's a paranoid fantasy the state operates in its own interests first despite the cacophony of evidence supporting this fact all over the world and the simple fact that it has always been so. But people also don't like being fucked over, and they're not stupid enough that they won't take whatever actions are necessary to directly counteract being fucked over as those actions become clearer and easier for them to take.

> I think that because the negative effects of porn consumption have been well documented, search engines needs to take action.

Porn addiction is a cultural myths with no actual science backing it. You could spend some time with material by actual sex researchers. Books by an actual clinical psychologist:

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sex-Addiction-David-Ley/dp/1442213051

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0996485236/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

WHO is not on board with "addiction" claims:

https://twitter.com/NicoleRPrause/status/1017460227430477824


Porn doesn't cause ED:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201308/erectile-dysfunction-myth

You linked to an activist site. There's no credible science backing the lion's share of conservative moral panic about porn and addiction.

So I think your core assumption is unfounded and everything that follows falls down. AKA Begging The Question fallacy in action.

I don't think you can disprove an opinion. I think you can contest an opinion, however, and I think some opinions are better than others. Let's use a more straightforward example. "The world is a better place when black people are enslaved." There is no way to objectively prove this untrue, and yet I think it's a worse opinion than the inverse. And, y'know, contesting the other opinion in this case meant fighting a war. If you think that Peterson's opinion isn't that bad, that's a different matter, but it being an opinion does not itself change the value of contesting. Given that he thinks that women fighting the fact that they were forced into the role of housekeepers were just whining about being bored, and that their complaints were therefore trivial, I think his opinion is quite worth arguing.


Here's that quote, for the record: "I read Betty Friedan’s book [The Feminine Mystique] because I was very curious about it, and it’s so whiny, it’s just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late ’50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they’re bored because they don’t have enough opportunity. It’s like, Jesus get a hobby."

one of Trump's former colleagues recalled him saying, "Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day."

http://www.amazon.com/Trumped-Inside-Trump-His-Cunning-Spectacular/dp/067173735X

So I may have gotten Trump mixed up with another Republican canidate on the poor blacks. I Will edit that.

Trump wants to deport 11 million people forcefully who are mainly of Asian or Latino decent. He is not offering them a way to become citizens and he doesn't even talk much about massive reforms to our immigration system.

Trump was firm concerning restrictions in immigration. “I’m opposed to new people coming in,” he said. “We have to take care of the people who are here.”
Source: nytimes.com/library/politics , Dec 10, 1999

No that is him continuing to assert that Chinese and other Asian manufactoring countries have teamed up to create a conspiracy about global warming so they can bring us down or something.

He never talks this way about Germany or Poland or Russia. He seems to target Asian and Latino countries with 25% tarriffs and talks of commiting war crimes on the middle east.

The last few mass shootings were done by white Christians, some of the biggest attacks on America were done by White people but after 2 shootings we should force all Muslims to register and there should be a travel ban?

Again he maybe a friend of Israel but he is a bigot.

>There is no conceivable mechanism by which the brain could generate consciousness, yet I am conscious.

Yes there is, check out I am a strange loop..

>There is no conceivable mechanism by which the universe and everything came into existence, yet here it is.

Yes there is check out A Universe from Nothing or The Grand Design.

You can argue these all you want, but (here's the important bit), even if there weren't conceivable mechanisms for these things, and even if our prior probability was really low for these things, we have roughly 10^500 times more evidence for our existance, and for our consciousness (ignoring the semantic problem with this word), than we have for things like para-psychology.

If I walked around every day, communicating with others psychically, and, when I ask the neighbor for sugar psychically, she comes over with some sugar, and when I psychically scream "Stop!" everyone stops and stares at me, then yes, I would be a fool to dismiss psychic communication.

This is exactly what happens with consciousness. I notice that people behave exactly as they would as if they are conscious (myself especially). If they weren't conscious, they (and I) would behave differently, so their behavior is a testing mechanism.

This is exactly what happens with existence. I notice that things... exist, and behave as if they exist. If something didn't exist, I wouldn't expect everyone to behave as if it did.

It's all about probabilities. nd with para-psychology, the probability is simply really, really tiny.

>He that will only believe what he can fully understand has either a very short creed or a very long head.

Your leaving out the other half here. While it may be stupid to only believe thing you completely understand (by the way, I believe many things that I only partially understand, advanced mathematics, for example), the alternative, believing everything you don't understand, is far more "stupid. (really, personal attacks, is that necessary)."