What neoliberalism has engineered for the rich is based on a false myth that the market solves all problems of inefficiency and competition guarantees the best price. They have engineered a change from state run business, denigrated as wasteful, whilst handing out contract to their friends who are offered an effectively blank cheque to provide services whilst being offered the latitude to pay their workers less, with less safety and fewer benefits. This was promised to have led to better services but has simply enriched the rich and squashed low end demand through low wages depressing the economy.
So whilst the captains of industry wag their fingers on the steps of parliament about too much government they are their to pick up their blank cheque so they can laugh all the way to the bank.

Can you verify these para-quotes, or are you just making this stuff up? I agree that Rand was basically evil, and her book was dreadful and has had a damning legacy on the security, rights and safety of working people, whilst increasing poverty and inequality, but I find it hard to accept that the book is so blatantly wicked to have convinced so many people, so easily.

Why would you think that a major movement that could include more than half the population of the world would easily submit to a convenient all encompassing definition for your benefit? A movement moreover whose very success and progress includes, by necessity a change to the very structure of society and of the movement itself. Feminism is not a single group, it is not a political party and is more than a political and social movement; it is all these things and more; an attitude, an approach and a way of thinking.

Starting a story whose second word is uncommon, and has a range of more familiar synonyms is bad strategy and possibly an attempt the demonstrate the writer is more than a writer but a literarian. "Me attempt literature, moi?"
Clumsy. clunky, and with dysrhthmic. I wonder if this is truly representative? But I certainly agree that were this passage's timbre to persist through the rest of the story it would make hard reading indeed.
It's actually confused too.
How can a declivity be a railroad bed blasted, and at the same time cut by a river? A river that was "out of sight" - its just bullshit.

My concern is with P8, which strikes me as an out of place assumption but I can't quite articulate the problem. Does anyone have any insight and/or solutions? Does that premise render the argument circular or is it ok to have an assumption like that in the argument for the purposes of validity? I'm not invested in the argument, I drew it up quickly just as an interesting exercise.

P1 If any gratuitous suffering is preventable and known , it is wrong to allow said gratuitous suffering.
P2 If some nonhuman animals are sentient and food production practices would constitute gratuitous suffering in humans, then food production practices constitute gratuitous suffering in some nonhuman animals.*
P3 Some nonhuman animals are sentient.
P4 Food production practices would constitute gratuitous suffering in humans.
C1 Food production practices constitute gratuitous suffering in some nonhuman animals. (from P2, P3 and P4)
P5 If food production practices constitute gratuitous suffering in some nonhuman animals, we know of some gratuitous suffering.
C2 We know of some gratuitous suffering. (from C1 and P5)
P6 Gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices is preventable if and only if a vegan diet is adopted.*
P7 If a vegan diet is adopted, gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices is preventable.
P8 A vegan diet is adopted.* — Soylent

I'm somewhat puzzled why you think this is a problem, since you have set aside any discussion about the validity of the premises.
It seems to me perfectly easy to me to construct false or contestable premises to draw ridiculous or dubious conclusions.
eg.
1 Jews are evil
2 Evil must be destroyed
3 Therefore Jews must be destroyed.

You could even shorten your argument to remove reference to humans, by simply claiming that animals can suffer and that suffering is to be avoided at all costs.

You could also attack the entire argument on what it ignores; the gratuitous suffering caused to humans by the fact that a universal vegan diet would deprive the world of domesticated animals, and the loss of the pleasure of thousands of gourmet recipes that involve meat, and admit to no substitute.

The first premise is necessarily false:

∃x: ¬(G ↔ C(x) ∧ ¬x) — Michael

He could just simply be mistaken and not actually lying.

Seems to me there are two arguments here:

1.) God does not exist, and therefore life is absurd.

2.) Life is absurd without god, therefore god exists.

The first argument is a reaction to the apparent non existence of a deity, while the second is a proof for a deity.

Absurdity here is meaning not only the metaphor of the actor without a stage, but also the complete uncanniness, or peculiarity, of existence as a whole if god does not exist.

Or is this just an appeal to emotions and ignorance? — darthbarracuda

What you have here is two straw men.
To some Life is absurd whether or not god exists (whatever you mean by God)
To others life is meaningful whether or not god exists.
If god exists, to most, life ought to be meaningful. The conclusion is, that if any feel that life is absurd then the existence of god is called into question; if you accept the premise.

Krishnamurti always made sense.
"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
What is not to like about this. Has people heeded this then war could not follow.
If you really think he is only now making sense then look to yourself and the fact that you have grown and changed. Some never do.

I eat meat because I support the existence of a more natural environment. In our world of monoculture, with billions of acres of wheat, or veg grown under glass, it is nice the think that sheep are still allowed to graze on pasture, thus giving back the the environment that which a purely vegetarian economy could never do: SHIT.
My local environment since WW2 has been turned over to mainly wheat production, in a cycle that involves the utter dependancy on heavy machinery for deep ploughing and the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. The result is the complete loss of all top soil for miles and miles all along the Southern coast of the UK. I more recent years, sheep have been increasingly introduced and eventually it is hoped that some of that topsoil- now at the bottom of the sea shall begin to recover.

The recovery of the environment has to include animals. If we cannot at least mimic the natural cycles of nature then we are doomed to destroy the earth.

You are dancing round the point.
A social contract goes both ways.

No, again, that's the goverment, rather than the people. None of the examples that you've provided are typically directed against the people, with the possible exception of terrorism. — Sapientia

I'm puzzled why you want to persist in this fantasy. The truth is whether or not you like it the nation is going to be held responsible. Sticking your head in a becket and pretending its just the governments fault is not going to save you from the "terrorist" who nation has had to suffer from the interference of your government over the last 100 years.
Nor should you be surprised when the tanks from neighbouring countries start to roll in and 'liberate' your nation.
So by action or inaction, those that act in your name, make you responsible like it or not.

Example. It was only the Japanese government that bombed Pearl Harbour; consequence Horoshima, Nagasaki. It was only the madman Hitler that annexed the Sudetenland , consequence: Dresden, and partition of Germany. Ask yourself what has the US government done in the last 100 years to justify the consequence of 9/11. South Africa's apartheid, consequence; sanctions leading to majority rule.

Of course what you say is true. Nonetheless the people shall be called upon by outside forces to account for their action. This can express itself in terms of sanctions, terrorism, diplomacy or outright warfare.
And so despite the distance between the people and those that govern them the responsibility goes to the collective.

The laws are enacted and formulated by the will of the people, and with their implicit consent. In this sense everyone is responsible for the actions of their government.

Were this fact more widely accepted, rather than complacently ignored, atrocities would probably be more rare.

The trouble with staring a philosophical discussion from a hypothetical which is impossible is that the discussion tends to find impossible results.

I'm coming to this thread rather late, but it intrigues me as to why TGW thinks that consciousness must be defined in terms of qualia. I wonder whether he has an argument to support that contention? I'm also wondering what TGW's descriptive account of qualia is. — John

Sometimes people are just wrong: maybe from a misunderstanding of "qualia" or a misunderstanding of the context of consciousness.

A p-zombie, lacking in consciousness, would be incapable of understanding the question, let alone answering it.

The act of torture requires the complicity of a torturer, and the cold blooded execution of this punishment turns that person into a monster, and requires a monster to complete.

In this way the law, and by extension, the entire population is made criminal by such actions.