So, what do you think?

Religion poisons everything?! — TheMadFool

The late-great Christopher Hitchens took a very strongly worded position against religion and did his best to dissuade the world at large from taking it seriously, but I think there is at least a drop of hyperbole in the statement.

Religion may indeed poison everything (to varying degrees) but, it has nurtured some other things too...

Hitchens would probably have liked the following aphorism:

"You can have a glass of perfectly clean and drinkable water, but if you add just a single drop of feces it ruins the lot"

It's fair to say that religion does cause some harm to just about everything in some form or another... And religion being the prevailing home-team, I don't exactly blame him for over-stating his case (it's meant to be pushed back against)...

Would you rather live a happy life that is devoid of external purpose/meaning (i.e: there's no grand plan), or, would you prefer to live a sad and miserable life which somehow services a third party grand-meaning-maker? (assuming there is no afterlife, to simplify things)...

The kind of meaning you're describing is the stuff of fairy tales, but luckily there's another kind of meaning/purpose (our own) which is much more robust and satisfying...

The more capable we are of living without inflicting suffering on the innocent, the more we are morally obligated to do so. But what happens if we should reach the limit of our ability to live free of animal exploitation? Where reducing the suffering for one means increasing the suffering for another?

I don't quite see a vegan paradox, but I do see a vegan dilemma; at some point the suffering of animals may only be reduced by increasing the suffering of humans (at which point empathy for animals fails, and sympathy for ourselves takes over).

When, if ever, does our duty to not-exploit animals succumb to our desire to maintain our own well-being?

Giving a specific case would be fairly easy, but what about in general?

I think a god way of describing it is in terms of the foreseeable risks involved:

We may be theoretically capable of living without exploiting animals in any way, but there are significant risks should we attempt to do so. It's certainly true that we can exploit animals less (with no risk at all), and I think we ought to, but once we've trimmed the fat from our animal agriculture any further cuts might court national economic and dietary risks (efficient animal farms being shut down will cost the aseconomy (in addition to the added cost of replacing the nourishment, and finding alternatives for all those useful by-products). Orchestrating a nutritionally adequate national food supply entirely devoid of meat might not be logistically feasible given the variety of seasonal produce that would be required, and the unfathomably large amount of artificial dietary supplements (nutrients like iron and b12) that we would have to produce and distribute.

Once we start cutting in to funding we now use for other things (hospitals, schools, basic infrastructure, etc..) to afford our veganism, how much suffering or even death ought we transfer back onto humans in the name of saving the animals?

Newtonian mechanics were not overturned by general relativity, nor are they threatened by any possible quantum revelation (because it won't stop being useful). General relativity provides additional precision to the Newtonian model (in a way, proving the rule by solving the exceptions), right? Presumably, Newton's laws (and GR) should emerge naturally from the correct quantum model (though we may possibly face insurmountable issues of scope, scale, magnitude, and complexity in trying to calculate or establish a connection).

I guess Feyerabend was right that there is no single exception proof method to follow which will always yield scientific truth, but perhaps this is because to access the information contained at different scales of time, distance, and complexity, we must develop fundamentally different scientific and empirical approaches at the outset? (e.g: cognitive science approaches vs astronomy approaches vs engineering approaches vs medical science vs computer science vs mathematics vs archeology/history vs chemistry vs evolutionary biology vs any number of fields within physics...). Not only do the physical steps we follow to initiate discovery change from field to field, but sometimes the guiding epistemic principles themselves change (e.g: physical sciences are able to rely on prediction-testing while the more human scientific fields, such as statistics, archeology, and computer science, tend to rely on corroboration and agreement with previously established facts as a gold standard). In some cases, such has human behavioral science, discovery can come from something so basic as "black-box testing", where all we care about is the relationship between output and previous input).

It's interesting he should say there is no "useful" exception free definition that universally applies, because utility or usefulness (toward scientific discovery) is exactly what the proponents of each scientific field or school use to guide the development of their own methodologies. Empirical utility in and of itself seems to be the very metric by which we determine whether or not something is scientific (is it precise? is it robust? Does it give us reliable knowledge?).

Depending on the object or field of study, any number of extraneous apparatus, previous work, and established protocols might be required to get anywhere empirically, and in another field the established methods might be entirely different. The sort of free-market of ideas and researchers naturally diverge as they more successfully adapt to their empirical niche. There's a world of variation out there, and it requires varied approaches to decipher it all...

There was nothing. — Wmhoerr2

Nope. Big bang cosmology says nothing about "beforehand", and it is likely the entirety of empirical science will never be capable of saying anything about "before the big bang" whatsoever.

Rather than asserting "there was nothing", it's closer to"everything we can observe was at one point condensed into an imperceptibly small space, and because we have no empirical access to that initial moment (the radiation we see only comes well after the big bang, and our theoretical models which infer what happens as we approach time-zero breakdown entirely when we actually get there) we can therefore say nothing about "before the big bang"..

If time as we know it did not exist prior to the big bag (if the statement "prior to the big bang" is incoherent), we can still imagine our universe as an effect situated within and caused by a greater universe, though, the nature of time, cause, and effect in such an inaccessible greater universe could be absolutely anything.

What does atheism have to do with superstition? @BrianW

In my view, atheism is mainly the rejection of superstition. There have always been atheists, but apparently (according to superstition) rejecting superstition is very bad luck and demands retribution.

Superstitions which go out of their way to target detractors just so happened to have been successful...

he only time they 'may' become morally acceptable is within a survival situation. — chatterbears

Survival isn't cut and dried. Security (required for long term survival) comes in shades of grey, and what's the point of endless survival if we aren't permitted to thrive? Thrival also happens to come in degrees, along with the costs thereof.

So to be clear, would you be fine killing mentally disabled people for food, since they cannot reciprocate your behavior (insofar as that allows you both to cooperate) in a practical way? If your answer is no, then the ability to reciprocate the behavior is not the reason you value humans as higher. — chatterbears

If our survival and continued existence was dependent on slaughtering the mentally handicapped then it would not be immoral to slaughter them. And I don't exactly need to give you some kind of objective rule that explains why I extend more moral consideration to (even handicapped) humans more than I do to animals; handicapped humans have willing guardians who can actually make moral agreements and it's not as if there is some kind of gain to be had from devaluing or slaughtering them.

So you have given me two justifications as of right now. 1st reciprocation of behavior. 2nd, intelligence level. As stated above with the reciprocation scenario, I will do the same with intelligence. Are you ok slaughtering humans who are of lower intelligence (such as severely mentally disabled people)? — chatterbears

You should know my position by now dude: unless we're getting something important out of a harmful action (like sustenance or the ability to thrive), then causing harm is immoral. When it comes to extending the same moral consideration to others that I extend to myself, I do that with intelligent humans and not dumb animals for practical reasons.

Right now, we are currently in a over-population crisis. — chatterbears

Actually we're quickly approaching an underpopulation crisis. Countries like China, Japan, and even Europe and N.A are heading toward birth rates that are less than the required replacement rate

Killing humans off, to lessen the population, would contribute to the ability of humans to thrive. — chatterbears

Killing off humans would be the opposite of humans thriving. It's possible that one group of humans could attack and kill another in an attempt to thrive exclusively, but it's also possible that group of humans could retaliate (making cooperation wholly more attractive).

When two human groups are fundamentally at odds though, war and slaughter happens, just as you say.

Would you therefore claim that, if something contributes to the ability of humans to thrive, therefore it is good for humans to put into action? — chatterbears

It's a matter degrees (of need and of harm). If something is absolutely required for human survival (let alone to thrive, which is slightly different yet still fundamentally important), then that something cannot be forbade by a moral system which actually permits humans to survive or thrive; anything less and the moral system will break down when survival demands give way to conflict.

Let me give an example: let's say I agree with you that some humans should be slaughtered to make way for other humans, but that I think you should be the first human slaughtered. What's your response?

You see, if your own moral system does not serve you, how can you expect to continue wielding it (especially without some tricky afterlife or other superstitious concept)?

I'll rephrase a concise answer to your above question: The more something is necessary for human survival and ability to thrive, the more justifiable it is against the harm that said something might entail.

This resembles how we execute moral judgments in practice: we tolerate "harm" if we deem it necessary toward the preservation of some greater good (often health and safety). Put simply, our circumstances can mitigate our guilt or even condone harm (when we lack alternative options) just as much as they can condemn us. Human meat consumption isn't a single monolithic act; it is a legion of different acts being carried out for sometimes drastically different reasons (sometimes justifiable, sometimes not).

Do you have any research on this? The cheapest ingredients in the world are plant-based. Rice, beans, pasta, fruits, vegetables, etc... To say you have established this fact without contest, is incorrect. I know many countries do rely on animal products to survive, but would you say most countries? I don't think so. — chatterbears

We had a very long series of exchanges in an older threat where I delved fairly deeply into the complex industry of agriculture (with ample sources), and I've been mentioning existing limitations that should give you common sense reasons to reconsider:

Cheap ingredients tend to be less nutritious ingredients; they're less difficult to farm because they absorb less nutrients from soil and require less heat/water/sunlight to manufacture their products. The cheapest ingredient of all, being field corn, is one of the main culprits of America's obesity, and is something humans could avoid eating entirely. Beans are a great plant, but we can only eat so much volume (beans also leave nutritional gaps which meat consumption does not, and those nutritional gaps need to be recuperated somewhere), and beans don't grow as easily as field corn. Going up the list, these plants get more expensive and require better soil quality and more fertilizer for sustainably significant yields. Fruits and vegetables simply will not grow properly in low quality soil where field corn or other very robust field crops grow. Furthermore, without cow shit, we will lose our only renewable source of fertilizer.

For anything but a first world country, (one which has an FDA like body capable of regulating a scientifically sound meat free diet, along with the necessary supplements that every person will need to consume) it would simply be unfeasible or too expensive to make a national switch. Any farm which grazes livestock on rough forage being shut down would wind up costing money or food security.

It's possible that a North American country could make the switch; farms would need to be incorporated into state ownership so that they can all be told exactly what to grow (to avoid national nutrition deficits resulting from no long term planning) and we would need massively expanded healthcare/welfare states, but we could do it. Though, at what cost? If we need to defund other important services like schools or roads, at what point might the cost become too great?

The reason I would say most countries depend on animal products for their security is because there are too many ways in which animal products are intricately linked into the rest of human life (not just food, but manure for plant based food, and dozens of other useful byproducts that have hundreds of applications). At some point, perhaps in the near future, we will have the technology and know-how to embrace alternatives as whole nations, but as yet there is still some risk. Since the challenges for even a first world nation to divert completely from animal farming are staggering, I can only see it as totally unfeasible for most of the rest of the world.

Holocaust survivors have compared factory farming to the jewish holocaust. See here: https://youtu.be/f7dZv43A0g0 — chatterbears

And what if Holocaust survivors jumped off a bridge?

I keep to my original question. Would you be ok with a holocaust for dogs? And since they are skinnier, maybe we would need a larger holocaust than our current one we have for other animals. Would you be fine with that? — chatterbears

I've already answered this, but here it is again: if it is necessary for our survival or security (security comes in degrees), then yes, it is justifiable.

o you care more about profit than the lives of sentient beings, just to be clear? Especially if it was your child or someone related to you. You'd be okay with giving the mentally-disabled agriculture industry your family member, so they could exploit, torture and kill them for profit? — chatterbears

When did I say that? Again: if something is necessary for survival, then it is not unjustifiable.

In the same way that animal factory farming isn't required for our survival right now, severely mentally disabled human factory farming wouldn't be required for our survival. — chatterbears

Why the hell are you talking about factory farming? For a vegan you sure love constantly mutilating that dead horse of yours.

You can call them false moral equivalences, but they aren't. — chatterbears

Comparing ethical animal rearing and human slaughter (thermodynamically necessary to have paid for the animal's life in the first place) to rape, molestation, cannibalism, Hitler, murder, and any other random atrocity you think of is terribly unpersuasive. At least choose an analogy that has some surface similarities with traditional animal farming if you're going to continue doing so.

The thermodynamic bill will be there regardless of our action, but should we not choose the best action for ourselves and others around us? — chatterbears

This is a great question, and answering it is the entire game of morality. What's actually best? How many of us can we morally consider? What happens when our happiness, suffering, or survival are mutually exclusive with that of another?

Can the gazelle extend moral consideration toward the lion, or vice versa? Ought they? Can we extend moral consideration to every other form of life by choosing to ourselves decline or even cease existing such as the anti-natalists argue?? Should we?

I have been reading your posts, and whether or not I know enough about agriculture is irrelevant — chatterbears

It might not be immediately relevant, but if you don't know much about agriculture you should consider that you might be wrong about the immediate feasibility of animal free agriculture. It's vastly complex; not just sticking seeds in the ground.

Do you think it is moral for growing or developing countries to consume human flesh if they don't have adequate access to the land and funds to go vegan?" - You didn't address or answer this question. — chatterbears

That's an irrelevant question, but I'll answer it: no. Eating humans is not a thermodynamically sustainable solution, and if human livestock can be sustained, then the main population could just be directly sustained instead, for a profit.

If you want to ask "if cannibalism is necessary for survival, is it O.K to do it?" then the answer is yes.

I am not saying one is worse than the other, as they are both immoral. — chatterbears

Is stealing a chocolate bar as bad as murdering ten innocent people? Both are immoral, yet one feels more grave than the other...

Why are you putting "higher importance" on the needs of humans, but not on the needs of non-human animals (such as pigs, goats, sheep, cows, chickens, etc...)? — chatterbears

My own needs are, to me, more important than your needs, even though were both human. Insofar as your human form allows you to reciprocate my behavior toward you (and insofar as that allows us to cooperate), I elevate my consideration of other humans above my consideration of lesser creatures for practical reasons.

The fact is, if you're willing to kill and eat another animal, even if it is the only way to survive, then you've valued your own needs above the needs of the other.

Surely there is some property in which you are making a distinction between humans and non-human animals. What is that distinction, in which allows humans to live free from torture and/or slaughter, but not non-human animals? — chatterbears

Intelligence. Basically, farm animals are too stupid and ill-equipped to be the masters of their own lives. In fact, unless humans rear and slaughter them on a continuing basis then they cannot live at all, let alone free of suffering; we need their meat to pay for their existence and they're incapable of surviving on their own, therefore it's impossible for them to live without slaughter. The fact that we cannot make moral agreements with animals (they're stupid) often pits us against them, where it's either our suffering or theirs.

This goes against scientific peer reviewed studies on many levels. You can do the research yourself, but I will link a few articles below. — chatterbears

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638464/
- https://www.eatrightpro.org/practice/position-and-practice-papers/position-papers/vegetarian-diets
- https://www.bda.uk.com/news/view?id=179[/quote]

Why do you keep inflicting random digital refuse upon me without lifting a single finger to actually cite the material? (your method of link pasting is not an adequate form of citation, and none of these links adequately or directly address the claim I made)

These links lead to articles, position statements, and studies that lean heavily on a less than complete picture of the economic factors and hurtles involved in producing a global/national nutritionally adequate diet. They rely on the assumption that a no-animal-product system would be nutritionally, environmentally, and economically feasible/beneficial in the long run, but they have not demonstrated these to be facts:

Showing that we eat too much meat is not the same as showing that a vegan diet gives better health results than a diet with some animal products (nobody bothers to carry out that specific study because they're all funded by diametrically opposed lobby groups). Secondly, none of these studies even attempt to show that producing these ideal vegan diets en masse is economically viable (there are seasonal considerations to make, limitations on available land, issues of storage and transportation (let alone inventing a brand new magical crop fertilizer) and more). Animal agriculture has the edge in some of these respects: we can dry store their feed-grain in giant silos and it will not rot (and it grows in more places), and we can selectively slaughter animals to meet changes in demand; we can move livestock around without the need for refrigeration. Too many animals being raised simply because we love to eat meat is clearly not economical or of nutritional value, but nobody is denying that. What's being denied is that the complete elimination of all animal products from human life (given the myriad of complex interdependence throughout all industry) would actually save us money. Very obviously it would cost us money and would create various agricultural and logistic problems for us to solve, ultimately threatening global food security.

The environmental assumptions made in favor of animal-free agriculture as opposed to limited use are at times laughably naive. For instance, given that (IIRC) about half the world's food is fertilized, and that there is no emission free fertilizer, it stands to reason that some manure producing livestock is in-fact economical. The actually peer reviewed study you cited blames livestock for 64% of all ammonia emissions but conveniently fails to acknowledge that the ammonia emitting manure in question is often used as fertilizer for the vegan diets they're advocates for. If we did eliminate all livestock, we would have to mine (using fossil fuels) oil and other materials to use as synthetic fertilizer, which may actually pollute the planet even more than livestock.

None of the articles you "cited" are scientific. One of them might have been peer reviewed, but a list of potentially misleading statistics in a publication for family physicians isn't exactly "scientific". It reads like an editorial...

No you didn't, unless I missed it. Was it, the slaughter of animals allows humans to thrive? Why should we thrive off the suffering/torture/slaughter of another species? Because we have the power to do so? — chatterbears

Yes, the slaughter of animals contributes the the ability of humans to thrive. That's a difference between rape/torture and the slaughter and consumption of animals.

It's not that we should exploit other forms of life for our own gain, it's that in order to gain, we must.

No we are most definitely not. A lion cannot survive if it does not eat meat. We can survive if we do not eat meat. But that is irrelevant to the point of, why is it ok to holocaust one species but not another? Would you be ok with humans creating a holocaust for dogs? Or how about if humans only created a holocaust for severely mentally disabled humans, in which we exploited their bodies for meat and other products? — chatterbears

Who do you mean by "we"? I know you don't mean all humans because as I've already established without contest, all humans living traditional lifestyles do need to consume meat, and second and third world countries rely on meat and animal products for their food security, so are you only talking about first world countries?

Why are you comparing raising farm animals to the holocaust? If we're being technical, the one advocating an animal holocaust is you. You could have taken the position that factory farming should not be permitted, and we would have agreed, but instead you had to take the position that to raise and then slaughter a farm animal, regardless of how well that animal was treated when it was alive, should not be permitted. By doing so, you've essentially made the statement that the life of any and every farm animal is not worth living, and you propose a final solution in the form of genocide.

It's funny you should mention dogs. You say "holocaust for dogs" but what you meant to say was "is it O.K for us to exploit dogs?", and the answer is yes, because we already do, and have done for thousands of years. But it's not entirely a one-sided relationship; we've used dogs for hunting and protection and companionship for so long that they have evolved into man's best friend. While they protect us from other beasts, we also protect them from injury, disease, starvation, and more. Would I be O.K with farming dogs for meat? It depends on the farm, but I would deem it foolish given how skinny they are.

Would I be O.K with farming severely mentally disable humans for meat? At the outset, I just want to say that this would never be efficient from a thermodynamic perspective (instead of feeding the human-livestock, just feed the human directly) but in some kind of fun-house reality where farming severely mentally disabled people is extremely profitable, I might not actually object.

If you recall, my position is that the justifiability of human meat consumption in general (and in individual cases) exists on a spectrum determined by the severity of need. If it was required for our survival that we farm severely mentally disabled human livestock, how could you or I then object? As our ability to satisfy our spectrum of needs without exploitation grows, so to do out moral obligations to refrain from exploitation, in those respects.

No matter how many false moral equivalences you draw between animal farming and {insert random atrocity here}, you'll not out-run the thermodynamic bill that must be paid if we are to continue existing.

If they have adequate land for animal agriculture, they should have adequate land for plant agriculture. It would be the same as me asking you, "Do you think it is moral for growing or developing countries to consume human flesh if they don't have adequate access to the land and funds to go vegan?" — chatterbears

Ahh, see, that's something that someone who knows absolutely nothing about agriculture would say, and also perhaps someone who has not been reading my posts (not just in this thread).

Feed corn is not fit for direct human consumption; we cannot digest it. Feed corn grows on land that is too rough and infertile for vegetable and fruit crops, which are vegan staples. We could take all that feed corn and process it all into high fructose corn syrup, but that has almost no nutritional value so nobody would need to eat it. Furthermore, in developing countries, goats and other herd animals are typically grazed on pastures or areas with rough forage, which is the form of traditional cattle farming that is actually economical.

P.S Are you saying that human cannibalism is worse than non-human animal consumption?

Yes of course they depend on the context they were delivered and the preexisting beliefs they sought to modify. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m trying to show if you look at my recent posts on the trinity thread. — schopenhauer1

I'm not positive where we differ. I'm trying to say that a mere through-point or ideological bottleneck is both not wholly representative, and not wholly accessible (in the case of Jesus).

We can reconstruct and corroborate the likely interpretations and specifics of Jesus' message by getting a handle on how beliefs were changing/evolving over-time, but I'm left unsatisfied given the hard limits on what we actually have access to, and given that the expansion of religion depends more on common interpretations and beliefs rather than clergical or authorial ones.

Well yes and no. Paul is widely considered the most influential thinker in early Christianity, shaping it to its gentle version. There were certainly influences in Paul which I’ve given a theory in the trinity thread (Gnosticism and Mystery cult practices). There were also other non-original sources as well including the Johannite idea of Logis clearly parallel with Diasporan ideas of logos already found d in Philo of Alexandria. — schopenhauer1

Paul may be the exception that proves the rule for Christianity (ironically having more direct influence than Jesus himself, whoever he may have been), but given the long theological history he drew from, and given the long series of subsequent reinterpretations that have taken place, it doesn't make much sense to assign a majority of Christian authorial credit to Paul or any other singular entity. Generations of Jewish oral tradition seems to have shaped Abraham (almost certainly an archetypal myth) and the old testament, and radical re-adaptation under novel social pressures (not just in the time of Paul) slowly turned it into something new.

When I rank the authors and influences of Christianity in my own mind, the circumstances which originally gave rise to "The Jealous God" among pagan proto-Jews (a kind of corporate dedication to a single god in an open poly-theistic market was a powerful strategy). Equal or next on the list are the social circumstances which caused "original" Christian ideas to popularize in the first place: commoditized salvation/afterlife/blessings just wasn't competitive/accessible enough for the masses of the Roman empire, where the message of Jesus was cheap, easy, and generous. In a world where social inequality would have been eminently visible (leading to discontent) at least as a peasant you could now believe that you would get the best possible afterlife instead of whatever meager afterlife prior tradition/culture dictates you can afford.

The original intended meaning of Jesus' (or Paul's) message could be any number of things, but unless it got interpreted as it did (a set of practical instructions which cut out the expense of prevalent and competing superstitions, and offered psychological salvation/happiness at a massively competitive discount) it would never have spread among the masses and never have become Rome's state religion. This is why I kind of scoff at the presumed value of authorial meaning; ideas become popular and are therefore presumed valuable because of how they are interpreted, not because of how they were intended. Why are the original beliefs of Jesus or Paul really any more interesting or relevant than the original beliefs of Pontius Pilate or historical or contemporary Jews?

You really haven’t read any of my posts in the trinity thread where I do indeed draw from a wide variety of sources. You are really pulling the rhetorical arguments by misrepersting my view which calls for a nuanced look at the historical evidence of 1st century Judaism of Jesus time. It’s like you are using my own ideas against me to make the opposite point. So weird. — schopenhauer1

I don't see where we necessarily disagree; we both view the evolution of religion as continuous change emerging from complex and dynamic social and environmental forces (notably Judiasm and economic/social conditions widespread in the empire re: Christianity). I don't think you would object to my description to Paul as opportunist, nor to my description of Jesus as not directly accessible.

Where we might differ, I think, regards how well we can reconstruct the timeline and series of causes/developments (specific to individuals) to actually pin down the likely authorial meanings associated with original Christian founders.

Well, yes I agree he was another victim of a Rome in a particular place and time. Please see my posts in the trinity thread. — schopenhauer1

I will check them out.

No machine I know is part of that. They are not concerned with Life, and they even destroy life to make room for more machines and synthetic space. — DiegoT

You have much to learn!

Biological life is indeed a mechanical form of life; we're machines:

Mohammed´s — DiegoT

There are wayyy too many Mohammeds... Which one? :joke:

"in a perfect world, the judge would be able to press a button and instantly alter the brain/mind and behavior of the offender, and would immediately set them free because they no longer pose a reasonable threat to anyone" That´s not what a perfect world looks to me VagabondSpectre. It is Stalin´s, Mohammed´s, Mao´s perfect world, but not mine because I think human beings have souls that need to be respected. Even dark souls need some respect, for the sake of the standard we (people who believe in human rights) want for Human kind. — DiegoT

This isn't rationally persuasive. You're telling humans to be compassionate because A: souls, and B: just 'cause. I'm telling humans to be compassionate because without hard-free will harmful retribution as itself a form of justice becomes emotionally and logically incoherent (taking sadistic revenge on a cog doesn't fix the original harm, or the cog).

Here's a question I hope can tease out the difference between our views:

If God resurrected Hitler and asked you what should be done with him, what would your answer be?

Mine would be to allow him to continue to exist in a form or place in which he cannot harm anyone. Why not let him be happy?

A kid is totally responsible for his small actions. Responsible comes from response; the person doing the harm is the agent whose response you want to improve. The kid responds to stimuli, and changing those stimuli you allow the kid to change his behaviour without even touching his physical brain or giving a good wash. If the kid gets fun from not controlling himself while playing, then let´s remove the fun by linking being so antisocial with no videogames for a month. — DiegoT

This is the general thrust of punishment as rehabilitation, and it is especially effective on children. But would it not be more ideal for children to learn about the importance of safety on an intellectual level instead of the level of Pavlovian conditioning via negative reinforcement? Granted, it takes time for children to learn such things (which is why we take the safe and easy route and threaten them, and when necessary physically intervene), but applying this method to adults requires far too much force and can be highly ineffectual.

Children or animals are not computers; computers are tools. Tools do not matter, because they are not part of something greater or meaningful: they aren´t meaning-makers, entities that experience the world subjectively and contribute to the cosmic soul. — DiegoT

If there's a cosmic soul, I would bet that computers contribute to it. I believe that we emerged from material which is not itself conscious, and I have no qualms accepting that a digital intelligence could qualify as "conscious" in all the ways (and potentially more) that humans consider themselves to be.

Whether we focus on the letters of Paul or defer to older writings, or oral traditions, there will usually be dilemmas of ambiguous meaning and questions regarding their influences.

Suppose we can get at exactly what Paul believed and intended to transmit into his writing: In what ways might he have modified preexisting theology, and why?

Suppose we could access the mind of Jesus (setting aside hypothetical divinity): does the exact meaning of his sermons not depend on the social context in which they were delivered, and on the preexisting beliefs which they sought to modify?

I'm loathe to assign the origin of any ancient religion to any one person or cannon because in my view they are continuously and usually slowly evolving beings, where at any time the most change one entity can effect is to add or subtract individual elements and attributes from the body of ideas already in religious practice.

I realize religious scholarship that responds to inquiries about historical interpretations and authorial intentions can have merit, but zooming in to a single identifiable point instead of assessing the trends and change over time just seems less than fully descriptive. When it comes to Jesus (I gather you find Paul to be an unacceptable source) I'm not aware of any single piece of scholarship which contains archeological evidence pertaining to his sermons. There are no surviving first hand accounts, and Paul is the closest we can actually get.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but given the overall lack of evidence, it's entirely possible that Jesus was just another victim of Rome, whose particularly gruesome death became legend and was later embellished by people like Paul. I do disregard scholarship claiming to have access to the mind of Jesus, both the man and the God. (If any direct evidence contextualizing the existence, life, or beliefs of Jesus does exist, I might change my mind)

This raises an ontic question:

Is religious meaning what is inscribed (by authors), what is interpreted (by clergy), or what is believed (by parishioners?)

My answer to this is that the original or authorial meaning of a concept or text is up-stream from the clergical/expert interpretations, as well as the lay-interpretations, but I would not say that the clergical interpretation is completely upstream from those of laymen. Given that trends of the masses (masses upon which the existence of religious establishment/institutions depends) can cause changes in the behavior of clergy, I'm not uncomfortable with putting the two on an equal footing.

The beliefs of the historical masses are much easier to access than the cloistered and occulted beliefs of the bygone clergy; the intended meanings of the original authors are perhaps inaccessible entirely.

I think he was referring to a tangible afterlife.

People in the old world firmly believed in the concept of an afterlife (so far as I can tell), and at the time of proto-christianity (in the pagan kingdom of of Rome) salvation and the favor of the gods was more or less purchased directly through deed or donation. Superstition derived power being so heavily commoditized at the time, the growing peasant class simply didn't have access to established religious favor.

In this environment, Christ's cheap version of salvation became the favorite religion of the lower classes. It's certain that early interpretations of Christ's salvation were not metaphorical, at least from the perspective of laymen.

Not going to address anything beyond this until you address this point. Are you saying that anything which serves a useful purpose is morally permissible. Slavery has a useful purpose to the slave owner. Therefore, by your logic, slavery is morally permissible, correct? — chatterbears

Allow me to rephrase: the slaughter of animals has enabled and continues to enable humans to thrive, and contributes to the security of human existence. Slaughter can be "useful" because it serves human needs (need humans thrive?), and those needs are generally of very high importance. As I have suggested many times, there is a spectrum of utility and need that can be applied to the present day consumption of animals. For instance, factory farming is neither economical nor beneficial to humans, but traditional farming is in fact economical, and does in many ways contribute to human food security and dietary health. Given the myriad of national, economic, and individual circumstances, it's true that a portion of the population are capable making an economically secure switch to an animal free diet, but it's also true for a great many others that the switch would come at great cost and entail varying degrees of risk (in some cases it would be impossible)

By my logic, slavery is not ethical. I pointed out one of the differences between slaughter/consumption of animals and rape/torture. With the lion analogy, we're comparing similar acts done for similar reasons (the killing and consumption of animals as a means of sustenance and means to thrive), and while it's absolutely necessary for lions to eat meat to survive, individual humans and human groups exist on a spectrum of varying need regarding the exploitation of animals.

Do you think it's moral for growing or developing countries to consume meat if they don't have adequate access to the land and funds to go vegan?

1. Explain why molestation is abhorrent but the contriubtion to animal rape, torture and slaughter is not. — chatterbears

Rape and torture not withstanding, "slaughter" serves useful purposes. Explain to me why the lion killing the gazelle is not abhorrent?

2. Just because something is universally agreed upon, does not make it true/correct. At one point, slavery was universally agreed upon, but did that mean it was the right thing to do? — chatterbears

There's no point sidetracking into a discussion about molestation...

3. The two actions are related. Both actions (molestation & animal torture/slaughter) are causing pain and suffering to a sentient being. If you want to say that an animal's pain is worth nothing compared to a human's pain, you need to explain why. Many of the world's pet owners (who have dogs) would already disagree with you, btw. — chatterbears

The two actions cause pain, but beyond that there are no other similarities. Sometimes being honest with people causes them pain, is honesty akin to rape?

1. We correct the actions of children because they grow up and learn more about self-reflection and how their actions affect other people. Lions never have this type of learning development. Lions are essentially 2-year olds that never grow up. — chatterbears

Please answer the question: why should I not kill the lions?

If a 1-year old hits another 1-year old in the face, are you going to exterminate that 1-year old? — chatterbears

Are you going to let that child continue to hit the other in the face, or will you intervene?

Your inability to answer my questions is much more revealing than my use of lion analogies.

Again, you are comparing the morality of lions to humans. And if lions can do it, humans should be permitted to do so, to some degree, correct?

Back to my original statement, which you completely dodged. If a lion commits infanticide, should humans be permitted to commit infanticide as well, to some degree? — chatterbears

We're not talking about justifications for infanticide, or molestation, or rape, or torture. The argument isn't "well since lions can do it...", it's actually "what's different about lions that makes you forbid me from killing them to save the gazelles?". I'm not saying anything lions do, we should do, I'm saying that you're a hypocrite for not caring about the deaths of wild animals by not assenting to the extermination of lions. The stupidity of lions (their amorality) isn't an excuse to let them continue to torture and slaughter their helpless prey

Ultimately, by showing that your reasoning does indeed justify the slaughter of all lions, It becomes obvious that your position is incompatible with a world view that actually embraces nature (instead of mostly romanticizing it).

I never said infanticide is the same as hunting wild animals. But you don't get to cherry pick what lions do in order to justify your moral actions. If you want to claim, "Lions can kill other animals, therefore humans should be permitted to do so as well", you cannot stop at that one action. If you want to justify your actions on the basis of lion behavior, you need to be willing to accept other lion behavior. — chatterbears

I'm attacking the consistency of your own moral view by showing it doesn't coherently forbid the eradication of lions in the name of protecting other life. You haven't once told me it would be wrong to exterminate the lions, you just offered inconclusive observations like "but lions are dumb".

Your last few paragraphs were the result of buying into propaganda and the lack of research on your part. If you want to actually know what happens in animal agriculture, watch the youtube video I linked in the original post of this thread. Or just google "Dominion 2018" and watch it. — chatterbears

If you're going to accuse me of buying in to propaganda (ad hominem) at least don't shill your own propaganda in the same paragraph.

That video is entirely about factory farming, a practice which I've already condemned. By constantly leaning back on bombastic equivocations (molestation, rape, etc), and refusing to address my actual position (re: traditional farming, not factory farming) you prevent this discussion from actually getting anywhere.

If you could answer my question about the lions, that would be very satisfying. Why should I not kill the lions to save the prey animals? (I know you will say the lion is stupid and therefore not to blame, but being stupid should not give someone or something a free pass to slaughter innocent life, should it? If it does, then the ignorance of the human race also justifies its meat consumption)...

Let me explain where I'm coming from: evolution has pitted life against life; to some degree it's a zero sum game, where the benefits of some species are the burdens of others. It's not just carnivores/omnivores causing problems either; too many ruminants can cause soil erosion, destroying habitat for many other critters; new arrivals to ecosystems generally lead to prolonged disequilibria, and even within a species there can be high stakes competition. For humans to exist in any large numbers, we MUST occupy and alter territory and ecosystems that would otherwise serve other species, and in doing so we damage them. Regardless of which individuals or species thrive, they will have likely done so at the expense (or opportunity cost) of others. Lions are a good example because they exclusively eat meat and therefore can only exist and thrive by directly and violently exploiting other forms of life. But if we wanted to, we could sterilize all the wild lions and keep a single group of them alive, in captivity, indefinitely, and feed them only lab grown proteins. In that sense lions as a species don't need to eat meat to continue existing; lions don't need to continue existing whatsoever, why should we let them? (note: this question is a paralell with "why should we let humans continue to thrive by exploiting animals?)

Summon your intuition and give me a serious answer about what you think the relationship lions have to the rest of the animal kingdom should be. Where lions have lost territory, should they be reintroduced to hunt the animals now living there free of lion related terror? Should we seek to maintain the existing lion population? Are we morally obligated to laissez faire? (to let the chips fall where they may?).

Deep down I think you realize that if you cling to the idea it is inherently/necessarily/sufficiently wrong to exploit another animal to any degree, then you would agree that the extermination of all lions is at worst morally neutral, because it preserves the lives of prey species. To avoid this, you will have to accept that some degree of exploitation of other species is acceptable (or necessary), and that is exactly what mitigates the moral guilt of humans for exploiting other animals. To exist and have thrived in the first place, we had to exploit on some level, and while it's true our increasing powers demand greater moral responsibility (we should exploit other animals less and less as we gain alternative options), there is, as yet, no widespread absolute responsibility that we refrain from exploiting animals in any way; we're not yet capable of doing so from economic and technological perspectives.

Can you tell me exactly which word(s) I am equivocating here? — chatterbears

Molestation and the consumption of animals. You're not equivocating the definition of words, you're equivocating the moral implications of two unrelated actions. (establishing/portraying one as abhorrent by associating/liking it to another which is universally agreed to be abhorrent, when they are not in fact similar.

We never hold an infant or a mentally disabled person accountable for their actions in the same respect we would hold you and I accountable. Similarly, we wouldn't hold a wild animal accountable who does not have the ability to self-reflect and evaluate their actions. Plus, wild animals eat other animals out of necessity, because they are forced to for their own survival. We kill animals for pleasure, not survival. — chatterbears

But we still need to correct the actions of children, and if a lion is like an innocent child who doesn't know better, does that give it the right to ravage innocent ruminants? We could put a stop to the endless suffering of these animals by exterminating lions, and why not? Just because lions exist, they should be permitted to terrorize and consume their prey for all time?

The existence of a prey animal who is about to be killed depends on the extermination of the predator who is about to kill it, so what's the harm in killing the lion to save the lamb? Are their lives unequal? If lions became more and more successful, driving other animals to extinction, should we intervene then? In other words, are lions aloud to exploit other animals in order to expand and thrive as a species? If so, I see no reason why humans cannot be permitted to do so, to some degree

Lions also commit infanticide. If I commit infanticide tomorrow, and you called me out for it, could I respond to you in the same way you have responded to me. "But lions do it, so why can't I?" — chatterbears

This is another false moral equivalence. Infanticide is not the same as hunting wild animals (what lions and some humans do) and what I consider to be the ethical raising of farm animals (again, NOT factory farming).

My point with the lions is that their existence (and ability to thrive) is totally dependent on the suffering of other innocent creatures. It is a mere happenstance of their nature, and if you want to say that permitting them to continue ravaging ruminants is O.K because of a mere happenstance of nature, then I can say that it's also O.K for humans to farm animals to the degree that our existence and ability to thrive is dependent on animal exploitation.

In other words, if the cessation of the exploitation of animals would cause damage to out short or long term ability to thrive, and we should do so anyway, then there is some parallel that would justify exterminating lions because it would be wrong of us to let them carry on murdering innocent creatures.

Baseless assertions here. To claim that the lives of wild animals are worse than factory farmed animals, is absurd. — chatterbears

Well, let's make the closest comparisons we can:

Cows are descended from forest roaming beasts who once lived nomadic lives in small herds (or so I've been told). They likely had relatively high infant morality given the difficulties of birth, and throughout their lives they would have to be alert and fearful of violent predators. Due to being constantly exposed to the elements year round, they were very hardy, but they still suffered, and injury/old age were death sentences. When it comes to death, they suddenly keeled over if they were lucky, else they slowly starved due to incapacitation, or were eaten alive by predators.

Cows get protection from wild predators, making them much less fearful and reducing stress. They are given food and shelter, which can make them fat and happy, and medical care which can allow them to recover from a host of ailments that would otherwise cause prolonged suffering. The actual conditions that farm animals endure varies greatly, and there are lines that we should not cross. On some farms, animals enjoy a very high quality of life, and their death is quick and painless compared with the deaths of their wild counterparts.

Again. If I tried talking to child molesters about how children should not be violated and are too young to consent, as well as can be easily taken advantage of. Would you just tell me, "You don't actually care about children, you need to give child molesters a solution!" — chatterbears

There's a severe ethical fallacy there; equivocation.

Human consumption (and killing) of animals exists on ranges of necessary to sport and humane to sadistic; moral to immoral. The molestation of children is never necessary or humane or moral.

You should be more specific about the practices you decry when making these kinds of comparisons. If killing and eating an animal is broadly akin to molestation, you should therefore support the eradication (or total incarceration) of lions and other predators who can only exist in the numbers that they do by inflicting pain and suffering on herbivores. If humans are wrong to thrive at the expense of other species, surely other apex predators are wrong as well, and even though they don't know better, we can still prevent them from doing more harm by taking action against them.

You might object and say that since lions can only exist by eating meat, they're given leave to molest slaughter innocent creatures, but this doesn't reveal the extent to which lions should be permitted to exploit other animals (there's a theoretical limit right? How do we determine it?). Furthermore, it ignores the fact that many humans do need to eat meat to survive (nearly 100% of humans living traditional lifestyles require meat as a part of a balanced diet, developing countries rely on it to make growth and development affordable, and first world nations, while theoretically capable of diverting to animal free diets, aren't yet prepared to spend the extra money to do so).

I suspect that whatever justification you employ to allow lions to continue hunting gazelles can also be used to justify the consumption of animals by humans, at least to some extent.

When it comes to industrial scale mass-farming, we're in total agreement, but I still cling to the idea that the life of an old-school farm animal is downright worth living (I realize you're an anti-natalist when it comes to the lives of farm animals). You must believe the lives of wild animals are worth living (hence your objection to our taking of them) but in reality the lives of wild animals are often filled with much greater hardship and suffering than the lives of some farm animals. What's your argument against traditional farming suited for developing countries?

It's true that we're not ultimately responsible for our own actions given we lack free will, but we are usually approximately or practically/pragmatically responsible.

Consider the following:

A child of 3 throws a rock and breaks a window: Do we hold them responsible? If so, to what extent? And what do we do about it?

The child has done a bad thing, but we may not wish to blame the child on normative grounds. We do, however, still need to take corrective action to prevent the child from continuing to misbehave. At the same time, the child is not morally responsible and must also experience some form of rehabilitative consequence.

From a legal perspective, if a person is sufficiently free from external coercion (such as brain disease or severe extortion), then we tend to hold them responsible in the sense that corrective actions must be done upon them. If there is an addressable external factor, such as addiction then a judge will consider to what extent the external coercive forces "mitigate" the culpability of the offender, and may sentence them accordingly (example: they might sentence someone to AA and community service instead of prison if the judge thinks correcting the addiction will also correct the offending behavior).

Formally, the law assumes that people have free will (or at least, can/should/must be held accountable for their own actions), unless it is demonstrated otherwise. It may presently be the case that prosecutors have to demonstrate defendants are mentally fit to stand trial in the first place (I'm not sure, other posters would know), but the take-away is that if you can indeed demonstrate that your actions were not authored by your normal self, it can mitigate or completely excuse criminal actions.

----

While it's true that the human mind is inexorably not its own (we all seem to lack hard free will), we just don't have access to or control over the root systems/abstract programming that actually generates it. When computers themselves misbehave, we look for the easy to address problems that might be causing the behavior, but sometimes the problem has developed deep within the complex architecture of the system, in which case there's nothing we can do to "fix" the computer.

Essentially, we imprison people for the same reason to throw away broken computers: they're a problem and we don't know what to do with them.

The ancient thrust of imprisonment is that locking people up is enough of a spanking and enough of a threat to everyone else that it corrects criminal behavior by force. While that's definitely somewhat true (fear and pain are highly operant human motives), it's no solution to crime. Old criminals die, young naive criminals repeat their mistakes, and prisons stay full.

Thus, from a moral perspective, mere imprisonment is an ethical stop-gap; in a perfect world, the judge would be able to press a button and instantly alter the brain/mind and behavior of the offender, and would immediately set them free because they no longer pose a reasonable threat to anyone (if they never had free will in the first place, it's not such a pity to "alter" someone's will with sufficient justification)...

I don't think censoring pornography will directly harm our democracy, but it seems to be a shot across its bow from a general censorship direction.

Our newly acquired digital fora have largely replaced their old physical counterparts, or at least made them massively ineffectual by comparison, which is why I do see the regulation of digital forums to be democratically relevant (regulation ensuring free speech, and freedom from intentional deception).

If everybody happens to be using a handful of particular sites, those sites can gain a large amount of political influence by controlling or manipulating the flow of information through their networks...

Part of me wants to say that Facebook can do whatever they want with their own network, but another part wants to say that the greater health and good of our democratic system is at stake, therefore we must step in regulate on some level.

We break up monopolies with anti-trust measures even though it's their property, and we regulate the media in some ways (it's not like breaching property rights is unthinkable). According to the FCC, the public owns the airwaves, and encoding information within them requires licensing and is subject to regulations (noise, decency, slander/libel laws, and political campaign related laws). The series of tubes that is the internet was not wholly constructed by the public, but it does ostensibly allow internet providers the privilege of installing and operating them along their roads, which implies that the body politic may have some degree of right to regulate their uses.

With television and radio, we have reached a place where we allow broadcasters to make a profit but also demand they adhere to laws ensuring they don't cause damage us in the process (don't tell lies being the relevant gist).

With Facebook in particular, as it is the most common medium in use for political communication (at least for the sake of argument), it can profit more than any other corporation from deceptive and manipulative practices - telling lies - and will directly harm our democratic, political, and economic outcomes in doing so. It is true that individuals can survive without using Facebook (I've never used it), but so long as it maintains its virtual monopoly we'll be left vulnerable to its insidious political curation as a whole.

Of course, the answer is to just stop using Facebook, and if we could do so we would simply migrate to a new social medium which would grow into a monopoly as well (because the more people that use a social media, the more useful it becomes, and the more users it attracts). The next Facebook would have the same incentives to maximize clicks and monetize users/influence that the current one does, and we would be back to square one.

Why shouln't Facebook be held accountable for feeding their users outright lies in the same ways we can hold a news organization accountable for telling lies? (especially in breach of laws meant to ensure campaign fairness)...

P.S @Bitter Crank Regarding pornography, because it is neither politically important (correct me if I'm wrong), nor held in virtual or complete monopoly by any one online medium, it's not ethically meaningful to regulate against Trumblr's decision. However, if Tumblr was the only source of pornography in the world, you can bet the body politic would be up-and-armed about incorporating it as a federally protected utility!

IMO, if the democrats stopped playing identity politics they would win by a landslide. Hillary was telling us that one of her merits was that she is a woman at the same time she was colluding with the DNC leadership to screw over Bernie Sanders. It would be neat and all to have a female president, but voting on emotion on is the mistake I hoped Americans would learn from electing Trump in the first place.

I don't think it will lead anywhere positive directly, but indirectly it would be a message/signal showing accountability, and a widespread rebuke of the post-truth politics that got us here.

America (at least used to) set democratic and legal standards in its role as the global leader. If Trump doesn't get spanked it will set a frighteningly low standard, and would likely lead to the end of American global leadership.

Unless Mueller has some seriously juicy stuff (as you say) he almost certainly won't be impeached...

If he can be sufficiently embarrassed though - the kind of embarrassment that will make even the staunchest Trumpeter gulp - he may decide to resign in lieu of being disrespected at every turn.

I read somewhere that Trump's cabinet actually considered using the 25th amendment to declare him unfit/incapable of doing the job, but they "didn't want to precipitate a constitutional crisis". As it becomes more and more clear that Trump is himself a constitutional crisis, maybe we can get a classic back-stabbing out of it...

"Et tu, Pence?"

hanged — tim wood

Woah, hold your horses!

Something so extreme would tear the U.S apart at the seams (it would make a martyr out of Trump for far right causes). Much better it would be for America and the world to see him capitulate and plead mercy.

just how bad does it have to smell for a Republican to acknowledge it? — tim wood

I reckon it has been shrinking, but there is still a group of Trump supporters who are tone-deaf to any and all Trump foibles; no matter what he says or does, fake news, MAGA, they took our jobs, etc...

I wonder about the house republicans though (the actual representatives)... They would not want to risk betraying Trump if their constituents might cannibalize them for it, but on the other hand Trump legitimately represents a festering constitutional and national crisis (he has no respect for American law, and he has turned America into a political laughingstock, and is generally incompetent or demented).

I don't want to get my hopes up, but surely Mueller is going to deliver something (else it probably would not have taken this long).

I think our best shot is that Trump will finally be embarrassed into resigning; the ghost of collusion-past might fix him yet!

It's about time... Feels like it's been multiple lifetimes since the investigation began...

What shall come of it all though?

The article which supports your claim of 51% is extremely dubious. (read: written from a blatant and bias laden agenda)

Here's how/why:

Their first claim:

"Animal respiration should be counted as a source of yearly GhG output"

Presently, as they acknowledge, the Kyoto protocols do not classify animal respiration to be a net source of Carbon Dioxide because animal respiration is considered a part of a rapidly cycling system whose GHG outputs are roughly equal to their inputs (plant matter grows, which sequesters CO2, and is then eaten and respired by animals, but the same amount of plant food grows each year (else the animals would starve)). It doesn't make mathematical sense to count animal respiration as a net carbon source when we are specifically sequestering an equivalent amount each year in feed and hay. In essence, animal respiration is trading CO2 back and forth between its gas form and being sequestered in plant flesh (and in animal flesh as well), it doesn't create or net CO2.

Their arguments against this range from naturalistic fallacy to false equivocations. I.e "livestock respiration is no more natural than exhaust from a tailpipe", and " if it is legitimate to count car exhaust as a net GHG source, then it is equally legitimate to count animal respiration as a net source of GHGs" (pg 12)

Their closest-to-sound argument to support the addition of animal respired GHGs are that increased land use and deforestation lessen the earth's ability to photosynthesize carbon away, but the impact from those factors are already included in land use and agricultural approximations.

Regarding the articles position on land use, they make further errors:

It acknowledges that GHG impact from land use and deforestation reflects year-to-year changes, but the article claims that it should be considering the entire opportunity cost of not allowing forest regeneration to absorb CO2 (and switching to low GHG alternatives in land use) as a yearly source of net GHG's. This makes the error of stepping outside the "yearly source" parameter (because previously deforested land reflects previous years) and also incorrectly portrays allowing forests to regenerate as a permanent source of continual CO2 sequestration. Once the forests are fully regenerated, the amount of carbon they can store is capped, so it wouldn't even be a yearly contribution...

Regarding methane:

This article acknowledges that the FAO (food and agri org.) modifies methane tonnage based on the the global warming potential of methane over a 100 year time frame. It has a GWP of 25 using the 100 year time frame. By comparing this warming potential to the warming potential of CO2 (1) we can modify the tonnage to get a total theoretical amount of GHG (methane and CO2) with a warming potential of 1 (because methane is a stronger GHG, pound for pound).

The article suggests, with the intent of inflating impact by focusing on the short term, that we should be evaluating the GWP of methane using the 20 year time frame instead of the 100 year time frame.
If a 20 year time frame was used, then it would have a GWP of 72. This is an unnecessary inflation because methane is only that much more powerful when we focus narrowly on short term effects (methane has a 12 year lifetime, but CO2 can last up to 200). The 20 and 100 GWP metrics use methane as a standard, and CO2 does less warming work over a 20 year period than a 100 year period, therefore they're shrinking CO2 warming potential relative to methane by comparing it at a 20 year standard, and concealing this complexity in order to arbitrarily increase tonnage, to misleading effect.

They go on to commit more errors in their other sources section (pg 14):

They seek to update the number of livestock related GHG's by citing increases in animal products worldwide, but they do not seek to update other sources of GHG's which theoretically have grown in similar proportions.

It cites, and fails to explain, a disparity in livestock counting figures, and proceeds to accept the high estimate (they said they were going to choose conservative numbers, which was clearly either a lie or beyond their ability).

The rest (the bulk) of this magazine article consists of suggestions about how to mitigate and transition away from animal products...

I'm not an expert on the climate or climate change, but I do understand its basic principles. This article raises some points worth considering, but it blows itself far out of reason and proportion wherever it finds the chance. It uses clearly doubtful and dubious accounting tricks which would not survive competent review.

It is extremely doubtful that agriculture accounts for 51% of green-house-gasses.

factory farming is one of the leading causes of environmental damage — chatterbears

I mean, an oil rig or a gold mine cause more environmental damage pound for pound, there's just so many farms (and many of them cutting corners).

51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, which is more than transportation. — chatterbears

Where did you hear that?

According to my sources, that's bologna.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

This is exactly the refutation I came up with myself (I used buy clothing as an example because we know the demand harms people). Maybe you didn't see the disclaimer at the start but I'm not actually an antinatalist just trying to get other good responses. — khaled

Indeed. I am addressing you as if I was addressing an actual anti-natalist, but I'm aware you're simply looking for refutations. Simulating dialogue with an anti-natalist might helpful in ways that a discussion about them is not.

I'm not saying it's akin to theft. Your argument was "if most people don't mind then it's okay" and I'm attacking that. — khaled

My argument was that if most people are thankful for it, then in most individual cases, it's not immoral. I don't recognize the validity of deontological rules because better and worse courses of action change with changing circumstances (I.E: in some cases, the risk of harm to others is very low, and the potential reward for them or ourselves is very high, which should impact our moral calculus)

That's what birth is. Imposing the conditions of life on another being. — khaled

It just so happens that we have evolved to thrive in the conditions of life, much like how we have evolved to enjoy the taste of milk. Mothers need not survey their baby's opinion before serving them the tit (it's a rather safe decision to force milk upon a baby).

But again, "the conditions of life" are ambiguous. Conception does not entail the infliction of suffering, it entails the infliction of a capacity for suffering (and pleasure). If pleasure is the predominant foreseeable result of the act of conception, is it not less immoral than conception where the predominant foreseeable result is suffering?

That's actually a better example, forget the theft and kidnapping ones. If you force-feed anyone anything for the reason "I think they'll like it" that's wrong EVEN IF they liked it. Because what if... — khaled

For the same reason, driving a car is immoral because what if...?

If you drive, you risk the well-being of others....

Does magnitude of risk vs reward count for nothing?

I am asking for a negative utilitarian response specifically because antinatalists are negative utilitarians. This isn't really a refutation of my argument. It's like saying to a scientist "so you're argument falls flat on it's face because it's only accepted by scientists?" — khaled

Not quite.The beauty of scientific truth is that it cannot be boiled down to a preference or opinion (scientific truth is demonstrable), whereas negative utilitarianism amounts to a subjective opinion about the non-importance of pleasure and the all importance of reducing suffering.

I can understand that you want an answer that will be persuasive to a negative utilitarian, but it's also fair to attack negative utilitarianism itself as means of dissuasion.

I decided not to post the first draft of my original response to this thread, which basically took negative utilitarian anti-natalism to the extreme of making ethically obligatory the immediate and forceful destruction of all life on earth (to prevent the reemergence of life capable of suffering from single cells). Ultimately I decided it would be less persuasive than questioning negative utilitarianism itself because, absurd as it may be, once negative utilitarianism is fully accepted that is its rational conclusion; as you say, it's not absurd in their eyes.

If I can't dissuade someone by credibly accusing them of wanting to destroy all life in the universe because they they know what's best for us, then another approach must be taken...

If all evidence points to the fact that most people would overlook a minor theft that does not make it okay to steal. — khaled

I fail to see how conceiving a child is akin to theft. If you're merely equating conception with any and every moral transgression, you've got no coherent argument.

If all evidence points to the fact that people enjoy drinking milk that does not make it moral to impose drinking milk on everyone which is analogous to birth. — khaled

Who said anything about imposing milk on everyone? (honestly, you make the strangest comparisons).

If I do impose milk on someone though, and they enjoy it and are thankful, why have I behaved immorally?

Also antinatalists are negative utilitraians in which case your argument from pleasure falls straight on it's face because negative utilitarians don't care about pleasure — khaled

In other words, your own argument falls flat on its face because it is only accepted by negative utilitarians?

Yes indeed and the conclusion you drew from that is also accurate and what antinatalists want. You can't prove ad absurdium by using exactly the ideal situation for the person you're debating — khaled

Anti-natalists want birth to stop occurring, not for society to shut down immediately.

When you drive a car you run the risk of causing suffering to other people. If conception is wrong simply because it risks the suffering of others, then driving is also wrong because it risks the suffering of others.

Why not?

It's not like kidnapping at all.

"Enjoys their captivity" isn't a coherent justification for kidnapping. Although, If the kidnapping is done to prevent some greater harm being done to the child, then you might consider it justifiable.

In the case of conception, no immediate harm is being done, but the opportunity for suffering (and pleasure) are created. If all signs point to the likelihood of children leading enjoyable lives, then overall, generally, or in most cases, it is not harmful or immoral to create them.

If someone creates a child and allows them to suffer needlessly, then they have done unethical things (the decision to have a child knowing their incompetence, and the decision to neglect it) If someone creates a child who then suffers immensely due to unforeseeable and unpreventable circumstances, then perhaps from a strict consequentialist perspective they have also done an immoral thing (the choice to create a child given the unforseeable bad outcome), but then from that same consequentialist argument, every parent of healthy and happy children are therefore vindicated along similar lines.

If the only argument is that doing anything which might risk the suffering of others is immoral, then society needs to shut down immediately. We face uncertainty in the world, but luckily we face it in degrees of varying intensity; we can evaluate the risk/reward of actions, and choose appropriately (hence, we allow people to drive sober, but not drunk).

There's no perfect set of rules to follow that will stop anything bad from ever happening and accidents will happen; there will always be risk of suffering. I submit that life can be worthwhile despite the cost of suffering it entails.

Most people want to keep living.

Most people (even those in relatively worse circumstances) seem to enjoy life.

Creating a new human will indeed entail some suffering to for them, but statistically it will also create enough joy/pleasure/good to make the whole experience worthwhile for them.

Therefore, the creation of new humans is usually an ethically justifiable action...

I'm happy with evidence and reasoning.

I just struggle with the concept that my thoughts may not be my thoughts. Not in the sense that they belong to someone else, but that what I appear to think, I'm in fact not. — Kranky

Are you familiar with determinism?

Try to accept it as a worst case scenario, that your thoughts are pre-determined by ultimately external causes, but also try to realize that from our limited perspective (lacking access to ultimate truth as a starting point) our thoughts appear to be enough our own that we must still put effort into pursuing reason or evidence, lest we be coerced to our disadvantage. (We still want to have accurate beliefs, and that still requires ground-work).

It can be very useful to question the validity, strength, and origin of our own beliefs, but once they have been reinforced and made accurate enough, the utility of questioning them declines further and further.

So if it seems that I'm thinking something, I'm thinking it. End of? — Kranky

We can explore the immediate causes of your thoughts (see: research into neural networks and contemporary models of human cognition for more information)...

The problem is that won't satisfy you. It's not enough, for you, to know the immediate causes of your thoughts, you want to know the "why" of every cause, which leads back to the big bang (which cannot be explained from a causal/"why" perspective).

It seems like you're actually asking for a general justification for life rather than evidence or reasons for immediate thoughts and beliefs...

The first definition is the only one you need to worry about as it is the scientific definition...

"Element" in the sense of "a macroscopic substance made up of one type of atom", is merely a colloquial (informal) way to use the word that is a vestige of chemistry's primitive origins.

Prior to the discovery of the atom, (al)chemists had all kinds of ideas about what substances were, and many sought to identify what they thought were the basic ingredients of matter. By attempting to identify basic substances, their properties, behavior, and what happens when they are combined under different conditions, they hoped to gain understanding and control over them.

This sense of the world "element" or "elemental" has a connotation of basic ingredient.

Thanks for replys.

My question:

If a car was heading towards me at great speed, I would, perhaps, conclude that this would kill me

This conclusion could be built upon the premis of me believing fast cars kill if hitting a pedestrian.

However even my reasoning for this (fast car = death) would not be certain. I could, in theory, be standing in front of the car believing there is no danger and a clever demon making it seem otherwise.

Is this possible? — Kranky

Yes it's possible but it's not probable. It's massively unlikely.

You should be more afraid of speeding cars than you are worried about deceptive demons.

But how can conclusions be stronger or weaker when we cannot know the strengths or weaknesses of the arguments?

Strengths and weaknesses would also be uncertain? — Kranky

We can test the strength of arguments through experimentation and empirical/observable evidence.

If I say that smashing your last finger with a hammer won't cause you harm, what could you use to cast doubt on the strength/truthiness of that claim?

Repeatable experiences reveal consistent relationships, and they're consistent enough that we can say the sun will rise (even though it might not) without a reasonable fret.

Allow me to give you some emotional and practical reinforcement:

I want you to envision that you are holding a steel hammer in your right hand, with your left hand resting on a table in front of you, palm down. Now imagine violently crushing the bones in your hand with said hammer...

How confident or un-confident are you that you can actually break your finger bones with a hammer?

How confident are you that having broken finger bones is a reliably painful or undesirable thing?

Do you feel the need to question the subjective value you retain by not harming yourself in such a way?

You may doubt the external "realness" of pain and pleasure, but you cannot deny the intrinsic value of pursuing one and avoiding the other.

The trick in philosophy with regards to an absence of absolute certainty is that we must instead compare premises and conclusions on a spectrum of weak to strong (some arguments and conclusions are much stronger and more reliable than others). If you break three fingers and a thumb on your left hand, how compelled would you be to smash the remaining finger for the sake of increasing certainty?