I wasn't demonizing sexual activity (though I have serious moral qualms about it just as I do with reproduction). — Thorongil

I don't see a distinction.

I was pointing out that Darth's reasoning implies that his position was entirely arbitrary. I don't think it's arbitrary, as much as misanthropic, and crazy. One doesn't get to invent their own private morality, particularly when it is in direct opposition to the morality of the whole rest of humanity... and even more obviously so when this private morality's highest good is anti-life, apocalyptic all humans should just die type deal... that's some super-villain shit.

Forced chemical happiness, bliss as the response to every foreseeable circumstance isn't hollow, and somehow promotes personal growth and deep insight? People claim feeling that way on some drugs, because they heighten the feeling of significance, but if it isn't genuinely significant, then it is hollow. Whatever magical alterations this guy imagines are delusional. I guarantee that stifling the range of human emotion, to the wet dream equivalent of buddy's imagination would just result in desperate attempts to feel something different, (unless the past range of human emotion was entirely hidden from the populous) out of boredom. Oh, would they not get bored also? Then everyone would starve to death staring at the wall (because no discomfort from hunger, no impetus to favor any activities over any others). What's that, people will be perhaps programmed to sustain their lives without discomfort nudging them? Then they're a generation of robots.

Also, I doubt that the author comes from a back ground of a regime of "pain disease and unhappiness", so whence comes his special insight into the condition that allows for such righteous indignation? I'd like to see him go do missionary work to places he imagines is like that with that kind of attitude, and find out how the people react to him. Besides that, wouldn't it be better to actually work on the causes of pain disease and unhappiness, and mitigate, and arrest them where they are in excess, rather than forgetting and dooming them in favor of a future "intelligently designed" eugenics project?

I find that loon far less than persuasive.

I could be put in worse company!

Maybe someday they will come up with such a way to change our chemistry, and we can all lay stoned in a blissful stupor on the floor. When our loves die we can feel nothing but pleasure, and when our children are crippled in accidents we can grin with bliss. Oh what a wonderful world that will be... we won't all be nightmarishly insane at all!

You say that we can't have the meaning that makes life worth living without a real risk, and then say that it is precisely because there is a risk that life isn't worth living. A catch 22 indeed, the justifications for living, and not living being identical. I'ma arbitrarily side with the living.

I know that I'm super deep, and it's difficult to grasp my level of monstrous profundity -- but more like "p, but if too much p, then not p". Life isn't like a syllogism, where things are necessarily so or not so, but rather a matter of degrees.

I'm cognizant that I walk dangerous and offensive ground myself. I could easily be construed as glorifying the most deeply traumatic of experiences, or oppressed circumstances. It seems to be the case, according to psychological standards, that the most attractive well-to-do people grow up to be the most emotionally well-adjusted. Of course the most attractive well-to-do girls are also in the highest risk group of cutting themselves, and why do they do it? Mostly because it makes them high, it makes them feel when they're numb, distressed, alone, and bored.

I'm of course not glorifying suffering, like it was a great thing to have been molested, or to have been in a concentration camp, I'm simply saying that if it happened, it's better to try to make something out of it than to be destroyed by it -- that leading a completely uneventful life is not so great either. There's of course excess in either direction, things are often good in certain amounts, but no matter how good we may imagine them to be, they'd become less so the more and more of it we got, until they'd eventually become destructive.

It's of course not glorious to have lived though horrible traumas, but it is more glorious to have survived them, and not have been destroyed by them than to have lived a completely uneventful life, filled with bored and unappreciated pleasures and security.

I was charitable enough to answer that question in a different way the second time you asked it, I don't think I'll come up with a third answer. Just look at my previous two.

I like who I am, my experiences are formative of who I've become, so no, I wouldn't change them.

Besides, I was chronically sick for 22 years of my life, and only moderately healthy for 9. Though I still experienced much back pain until only a couple of years ago. I think I've still got plenty of appreciating left to do.

No, because I have more important things to do, nor do I think that life is only, or primarily about pleasure seeking. Enough pleasure, and enough misery tends to come my way, without me even trying, on the way to more important things.

I don't think that there's any denying that it feels better returning to normal health after being sick than just always being normal health. There is a happiness there. There is a relief, and happiness in being delivered from a distressing circumstance. Every kind of food is fantastic when you're starving.

It sure would be wonderful if we could get those feelings without the preceding misery, but that isn't how the world works. Equating life itself with suffering and misery is why one would want to escape, in order for the release.

I don't expect much, I enjoy my little pleasures, and am quite pleased about how things are going for me. I can't wait to be working hard again though, any day now... as relaxing just isn't relaxing until the point of complete exhaustion.

What do you expect, or want from life? What does it owe you? What would it take to live up to your standards?

Maybe if I was deficient enough in the misery department I might try that, but my cup runneth over. People that get bored enough stir up lots of shit. That's why idle hands are the devil's play things. Most people have plenty enough suffering and conflict to get them by just fine.

You are also misrepresenting what I said again. Misery doesn't equate to happiness, in a one to one correspondence, but boredom, lack of conflict and drama is always worse.

Yeah... I didn't say that misery was great, I said that it was one of the things that makes life great. Apples aren't pies, but they're one of the things that make pies.

What I'd consider a lot of pain, and what you'd consider a lot of pain are like Wittgenstein's beetles -- they're private, and something we can't share with one another. You can think I'm spoiled, and I can think you're weak, but I'd rather take that back, and just say that my disposition differs.

I personally have never experienced that level of pain. Calk it up to personal thresholds, I guess.

It's called being reasonable. If you want to call being an unreasonable loser less pathetic than a reasonable winner, that's up to you.

Pain is preferable to boredom. An experiment was done were people were locked away for 15 minutes without distractions, with only the option to shock themselves, and half of people did it. That was only within fifteen minutes.

It can be difficult to lower one's expectations indeed, particularly when they can't even conceive of the idea, and view it as tantamount to just expecting their over-blow expectations to never be fulfilled. The point is that lower expectations are easier to achieve, as in, your life will then be full of success.

It doesn't have to be fun, it just has to be interesting. Disappointment is a by product of expectations. Have lower expectations, be more easily pleased.

Nah, it's wish fulfillment. We identify with, and live vicariously through the hero, they're us. The problem is that war isn't glorious like it is in the movies, and comic book villains, don't exist in real life. Real life drama is messier, the hero (us) doesn't always win, and our enemies are just human beings not much different than us. Real life is complex, doesn't have an over-arching plot, and there often are no satisfactory resolutions. Being cognizant of this, too cosmopolitan, to careful, and sympathetic -- too doubtful of resolution narratives and the righteousness of our causes, and evilness of our oppositions takes the steam out of the real thing. No righteous warriors with good enemies are ever bored, or unhappy.

We do desperately want to be involved, and play it out in fiction and fantasy, but simply lack the resolve, naivety, ignorance, and self-assuredness to play it out for reals. We don't want to be wrong, be the villain, fail, and risk ourselves in that way.

That's why you should latch onto your causes, fight bitterly their oppositions, never listen to anyone over forty -- and you'll never be bored again.

Yes, I unabashedly point out that life is drama and misery, and that is precisely what makes it so great, interesting, and worth living. The depression in the western world as opposed to the third world is a product of comfort, routine, and security. People read and watch fiction which is all about drama and conflict, and the "living happily ever after" is at the end, and never a story worth telling. If we come back to those characters, it will be because paradise gets interrupted, and some new interesting conflict and drama has befallen them.

All we want to hear about on the news is violence, grit, and drama, maybe capped off with a cute puppy. Paradise, without conflict drama and misery would be insufferably boring, and then it would be time for mass extinction. While there's still interesting conflicts afoot, it's worth sticking around.

If God wanted us to be vegan, he'd have given us bouncy feet and floppy ears and we'd lay colorful eggs. — Hanover

What, you don't?

I'd rather just complain and not actually do anything. That's what heroes do.

There was a very popular book called "breaking vegan" which was topping the sales charts on Amazon, but the author claiming that veganism almost killed them didn't mention how they were actually just incidently vegan, in that I guess trying to survive on 800 calories of a juice a day is technically vegan -- but being a crazy person is what almost killed her.

There are vegans you can find that are b12 deficient, but you'll also find that they are generally malnourished, and simply have incredibly bad diets. Can't survive on potato chips, and diet coke for years it turns out. The body actually is great at storing nutrients, and stores months supplies, but not years supplies. Also, the effects of vitamin b12 deficiency are entirely reversible with some infusions, whereas the effects of some vitamin deficiencies may be more permanent. Either way, maybe one in a million vegans get the symptoms of b12 deficiency, and as I said, they're usually just malnourished in general, the b12 deficiency being the least of their problem -- and it wasn't veganism that causes it, as most of them are incidentally vegan, but just crazy people that try to live on only juice, or potato chips.

Well, I don't have much issue with the genuine healthcare industry, and of course am using only data from the genuine medical industry to counter "health and fitness" hogwash.

There should be more regulations, and yes, the US is often one of the last countries to approve medications, and pseudo-health products, but most of them would still be approved because most of them are fairly harmless, or not as bad as other things, or completely without any effect whatsoever. There needs to be more regulation though, which forces them to put big huge disclaimers on them that say what they really do or don't do.

Sweeteners won't give you cancer, or melt your brain or anything, and tend to be criticized on the naturalistic fallacious account that they're artificial, when really you shouldn't bother with them because they do the opposite of the thing they're supposed to do. I'm all for free market, and all that, I just think that they need a hell of a lot more regulation for quality, and honesty. I more bemoan human nature, I suppose, than capitalism itself. The system stimulates the flourishing of half-truths and outright lies in the pursuit of capital, and enslaves, and fleeces the masses to shiny things, and empty promises, while denying them everything of value. Sure, it isn't as if the truth is completely hidden, or there's some big conspiracy, just people want to believe bullshit, and hate the truth. They want to be distracted with shiny things and lies.

When people think about "health", and look at themselves in the mirror, they don't actually think about health in the medical sense, but how fuckable they are in the hollywood, mainstream magazine and fitness model sense. Everyone knows the truth about most things, none of it is arcane, but they are convinced that it is, and reject the obvious. It has to be overly complex, ancient secrets, or discovered by some mystic whacking it in a cave.

On Futurama society crumbled at the advent of sex robots, because impressing the opposite sex was the reason anyone did anything, and without a need for that, people didn't see a good enough reason to bother. I wonder if that was completely off the mark. I think that contrary to what people often assert, that porn makes people more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, or be rapists, that it makes people more likely to not even bother with attempting to have real relationships. People that find social interaction difficult and stressful can get their inter-personal, and sexual fixes on the net, and need not deal with real human beings -- and of course everything I do is just, right, and the best thing anyone can do, so I must justify it as the best, or most moral option.

I'm by no means a social butterfly, and find people incredibly stressful too. I always wanted to have a good romantic relationship though, and someday have a family. I thought I was in love with someone last year, or convinced myself that I was for awhile -- things didn't work out, but it was still some great memories. I dated immediately afterwords, in kind of a rebound phase, but just wasn't feeling it, so haven't since, but I'll try to put myself back out there this summer.

Life is hard, and often miserable, so why demonize one of its few pleasures?

And we actually can and do synthesis b12, I should mention, but just too low in the colon to be absorbed by the body, but human waste is still full of b12 too. We used to use human fertilizer back in the day, and weren't super worried about sanitizing the vegetables before consumption.

There is loads and loads of bullshit about b12 on the intertubes, but see if you can find any cases of vegans that have actually developed b12 deficiency, especially as compared to the risks of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity linked to meat consumption.

Also, the gut bacteria produces the b12, and the soil tends to come into contact with animal waste. It is true that soil and spring water doesn't produce b12 itself, or it doesn't come from there, but that isn't the same thing as saying that you can't get b12 from soil and spring water.

Well, sure, foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients are not so good for you, but you can lose weight eating nothing but Twinkies, and gain weight eating the healthiest foods in the world, depending on your calorie requirements, and activity levels.

Meat is fortified with b12, which actually comes from soil, and natural spring water, or well water. Plenty of vegan foods like soy milk are fortified with b 12 too, and aren't carcinogenic, or causes of diabetes.

You're 70, sounds like you're in pretty good shape to me. I take care of my dad, and he's 6'3 320 lbs, and has diabetes. He's only 55, and can't even walk for fifteen minutes. He won't listen to me about health things though, clearly he knows what he's doing, and I don't.

People call me too thin all the time too, but I'm not that thin, I don't think. Definitely not as thin as I'd like to be. I was sickly and overweight when I was a kid, and probably have something of a complex about it now.

I know that you can't cook the sauerkraut or it ruins it, but I read that the bread is supposed to count, don't know how that works. I'm going to have a garden this summer, and plan to ferment my own veggies.

I have two coffees in the morning with soy milk.
Then at night I have a large spinach salad with sauerkraut, no dressing. 1/3 cup of beans, and 1/3 cup of nuts, and some fruit. I try to keep it under 1500 calories, just to maintain my current weight. I could eat more if I worked harder. Been off work for the winter though. I usually do about 2 hours of exercising a day, and go for a 45 min walk.

According to my rough calculations, your daily intake is about 1700 calories. Good healthy foods though.

Should also say to eat yogurt. Worry about your gut flora, which is directly linked to weight management, cognitive function, stress resilience, and the production of serotonin. Having good gut flora makes you happier, and smarter, and makes it easier to maintain a healthy weight. So eat probiotic foods. I'm a vegan so I can't eat yogurt, but fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut, or sour dough bread works too.

I wouldn't do a low carb diet, it really isn't good for you. Carbs are plenty satiating, just avoid the combination of fat and carbs, that's what will get you. Always eat them separately.

I've never been in fantastic shape, I'm the healthiest in the family now though! I would really like to lose ten more lbs myself, but it's damn hard to do. I'm 165 lbs, 5'10. I'd like to say that I'm around 15% body fat, but it's really hard to calculate, and we're usually fatter than we think we are. My top four abs are visible in the right light, lol.

My bone structure is small though, I have small wrists and ankles. Though years of yoga has given me fairly strong connective tissue and tendons. I work with a guy with arms twice my size that isn't stronger than me, particularly in grip strength. I can carry my body weight up a ladder, though I've never stepped foot in a gym.

I do care more about looks than health. I really thought that you needed to do tons of particular exercises to make those muscles bigger... I didn't know until recently that that was bullshit, that as big as they are is probably as big as they'll get.

As for losing fat, I think that intermittent fasting works best for me. In order to burn fat, you have to be in a calorie deficit, it doesn't really matter at all what you eat in this regard, as long as it's less than you require to maintain body weight. I think that the best method is to eat at night, so that your muscles can use the calories to repair over night, and exercise and exert yourself on an empty stomach, so that your body is forced to use fat as fuel.

I believe this method to work best for targeting only fat loss, while minimizing muscle lose, but really all that maters is eating less calories than you require.

A few other things, carbs don't make you fat. You'll lose more weight on a carb free diet than a fat free diet, but that's because you'll just harvest more muscle to make a sugar substitute to run your brain, and it won't work as well either, and your cognitive function, and athleticism will drop.

Sweeteners and sugar substitutes will make you fatter than refined sugar will. Repeated animals testing demonstrates it. The sweeteners, because they're so low on calories stimulate the appetite, but don't satiate it. They also make you release insulin even though it isn't really sugar, and because your body is trying to get calories out of it, it changes your intestinal flora to favor bacteria that is better at extracting calories from what you're digesting.

Yes, but it's also very important to point out that one doesn't have to be huge to be on steroids, that is the biggest misconception. In bodybuilding their is size, and aesthetics. The fitness models just want to look good, but you simple can't be 5% body body with full looking muscles without being on drugs. They just take a lot less of it than the huge guys, but they're still on it.

If you're 5% body fat, and didn't just work out five second ago, and don't look like you just walked out of a concentration camp, then you're on something.

The performance enhancing drugs hit the gym scene in the 1950s (and is readily available at pretty much any gym, for pretty cheap, less than $150 a month for roids), the fat free mass index, where it is determined that naturals can't exceed 25 was established most by looking at the pre 50s world class body builders. Don't get me wrong, that's a shitload of muscle, but they were still genetic freaks that worked their whole lives. The most important thing in my view is form. Most people from the past that worked really hard their whole lives were still probably not much to look at, and the physical geniuses that performed their tasks with good form still surely stood out, and working their whole lives would certain become muscular. Nothing like a roided up Arny though. The pictures besides Arny look to be at about 15% body fat, maybe a little less, which is reasonable. They'd be considered fat by todays standards though.

Surely also, it has been discovered in the past that you can spend short periods at low body fat without losing much muscle mass, but they still look flat and scrawny unless they got a good pump on before posing for that painting.

It's also really difficult to tell how big someone actually is until you're standing next to them. Puffing your lats out, and your chest up really does make you look a lot bigger.

Twisted sisters aren't much good for anything. — Bitter Crank

They have great hair though!

I'm unconcerned because it's a media invention, just as I'm unconcerned about vampires.

There are no such thing as pyschopaths. Not that I take psychology all that serious, but it's not in the DSM, its closest analogue would be anti-social personality disorder, but that requires a criminal history (as it is by definition a criminal mind, and doesn't even focus on personality traits but anti-social activities), and thus doesn't apply to most CEOs.

I believe in big fat assholes though, they definitely exist. Ought big fat assholes be in charge? Nope.

Sounds like something my dad would say... but we can't all be welders, and we can't all be philosophers, they both have their places.