Hey boys and girls, just like a factory farm.

Moved this to profile pages, better late than never.

I'll try to be brief....and fail miserably I expect.
I accept the fact that some theories I hold will be wrong, and cause failure. At least theories can be tested and discarded when proven false. Yes, some are so engrained it would take TNT to dislodge them, but they aren't unchangeable, beliefs are immutable.

No morality in that claim. Moral excuses might be 1) I minimize any suffering by buying mostly family farmed meats and 2) those lives only exist for human pleasure and substance. If no one ate cows and pigs, they would be extinct nuisance animals. (And chickens rare) If the animal has a nice, pain and stress free life, but in trade that life ends early, as long as the end is humane I'm not bothered. That's life it otherwise wouldn't enjoy at all.
Factory farms don't meet those requirements.
They're tasty is why I eat meat. It might be snide, but it's honest. Yes, I'm obstinate, I like meat, I'm not claiming it the most moral, ethical, ecological, or empathetic thing to do, but if done thoughtfully it's not the worst either.

My meaning with "it's not the worst t thing people do" was to reply to " I believe (assuming humans survive) humans will look upon this time of killing billions of animals for nothing but human pleasure with disgusting disgrace." with a few other examples of things worse that we will be judged for, not to distract or excuse. I'm not sure how that's a logical falicy. Tens of Billions of animals are killed horrifically for pure greed and not even used as food, that's a disgusting disgrace I could denounce.

I read the WHO study he was referencing and it said no such thing, I told him, showed him, he kept repeating the bullshit lies. I'm not receptive to people who blatantly misrepresent science. I don't rely on any industry produced studies for any decisions, that would be dumb. The study said certain highly processed and preserved red meats had some carcinogens, not any meat at any level is equivalent to two packs a day. My degree is general science, I can read a study.

Oh shit, nutritionfacts.org is Dr Gregor, the one who outright lies about scientific studies, and the one who made the false equivalency between tiny amounts of meat and constant chain smoking, he also loved to misuse "plant based" to mean vegan and claim the studies on plant based (not plant exclusive) diets proved vegan benefits when they really proved a mixed diets benefits. I've been deep down his rabbit hole, and found him incredibly unscientific and dishonest. I don't trust him one bit, sorry.

I've only known a hand full, including the one who introduced me to Dr Gregor, my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and a few here in hippy central where I live. Not one was honest, they acted like it was religion and took statements as gospel with no investigation and were forceful in their insistence that everyone agree.

I once ate fish and thought it was fine. Three years of marine biology cured me of that, so my theories are changed by facts. I promised myself to never learn too much about chicken, pork, or beef because I don't want to know what's in them unless it's broken glass. That's a conscious decision. There is no hell hot enough to scare me away from good bacon. That said, I do care that they have a good life before being harvested.

I'm willing to change behavior and thinking. I previously thought the fda was good at protecting us, I decided I couldn't trust that.

I make some decisions based on MY morality, some on self interest, some on group/global interest, etc. I'm not willing to make any based on someone else's morality, especially if they're pushy.

I have no clue who visits, but this is where I come, so it's where I speak up.

I always make the mistake of thinking people will be logical.

If the remarks being contradicted are not only smug they're also ridiculous, devoid of fact, racist, and or dangerously stupid (like insisting in May that Coronavirus is a hoax that's not dangerous and is a "nothing burger", and everyone should be back at work), and contradicting them with facts and references and +- 1/4 the disrespect the original remarks contained makes people vote for Trump, that does indicate they were already trumpsters imo.

Edit: It's like Democrats have a high bar to clear, but Republicans have no depth too deep to stoop to.

Trump changes Bob's beliefs daily, every time he changes a position Bob changes his belief to make the new position seem reasonable to him. He is not consistent. No other opinion matters to him.

I don't hold beliefs, I have theories. It's easy to change your theory when given new information, I do all the time. Beliefs don't work that way, so I avoid them as much as possible.

Yes, and I eat animals because they're delicious. I would eat people if they were raised and fed better, but we are polluted beyond recovery imo.

You may be correct, but eating meat is hardly the worst thing humans are up to. Killing for sport seems worse, so do kill "shelters", puppy mills, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, etc....I could go on for pages with that list. I try to eat free range locally farmed on family farms meat, not factory farm meat. I know the difference in quality.

I gladly discuss vegetarianism with honest people, but I'm prepared when they start spouting bullshit like " eating any red meat is more harmful than smoking two packs a day of filterless cigarettes" (yes, someone insisted that was true because they didn't care it wasn't, it helped scare people, I contradicted him every time he lied.) The difference is, I could agree with some of their points that weren't gross exaggeration, I agreed that excessive meat eating is horrible for people, I agree that most meat is produced under horrific conditions, I would not agree that ALL meat is unhealthy in any amount and ALL meat is tortured it's entire lifetime because I know from personal experience that's just not true. We raised cattle, free range cattle, in the 70's. They were happy cows that had an enjoyable life roaming our ranch until the day they went to market, a life they wouldn't have if people didn't eat meat.

I've never met a vegan that wasn't a bold faced liar in support of veganism, so I'm less likely to give them a full chance at convincing me. The fact checking part of my brain goes on high alert when talking with them about health or other issues involved in meat production, with excellent reason.

Again, that would be long held theories in my case, and it's not hard to change them. Mad cow disease got me to change until I was certain it wasn't in America. No, I'm not recoiling. I'll listen to anyone who's respectful and honest.

Here's the thing, Bob consistently trolls in a condescending, self congratulatory, and bat shit crazy way. Turnabout is fair play.
As the only person willing to reply to him for long stretches, I know him. I've had many private conversations with him where he's far more reasonable, honest, willing to admit mistakes, etc. (Something I gave up when he applauded Trump lying under oath because "only a dummy tells the truth under oath if the truth might harm them, Trump winning!") When someone is so anti truth and snide, they deserve some snidely delivered truth in return. Bob has proven he's undeserving of the civility you want him to receive, it's never returned.

Bob does not take anything in from any source not pre approved by Trump. I've tried for a decade, and now know he only comes here to troll the libtards. It doesn't matter if you show him video proof and expert opinions, he'll ignore them and regurgitate more nonsense claiming the opposite of reality. He's not trying to change minds, in case you're confused. He's hoping to trick people who for whatever reason refuse to investigate his factless hyper biased claims and amplify the madness. That he comes here to do that, a site he regularly calls a pure liberal site (it's not) is proof enough to convict him of just trolling.

Trolls deserve derision.

I spent years ignoring his little jabs, insults, derisions, and whinging and trying hard to dispassionately contradict his false claims with pure facts and references, it was no different then.
While privately he would admit he's wrong, he would then publicly repeat the claims he had just admitted were bullshit. When he started supporting perjury from the highest position on earth down as long as they're Republican but still calls for life in prison for democrats that he thinks lied even not under oath, he lost any right to civil replies imo. He bought it when Republican representatives said publicly in interviews that they have no obligation to be truthful with the American people, and he applauds it and repeats their lies with glee.

Edit: in general I agree that dispassionate fact based replies with references are better at convincing people than derision, there are exceptions, and there are those who are unconvinceable and disinterested in facts that don't support their lies. How long are you capable of rebutting them with just fact and references when they are smug, snide, insulting, dangerous, and seriously delusional if not just purely dishonest?

Rebuttal?

Oops.
Ok @bobknight33, time for you to gloat. I was totally wrong about it costing us $50 billion per year....

....but I was dead on with the $87.5 billion per year figure according to the federal reserve's report....not including the tens of billions of taxpayer's money handed out to factory farms in Trump's enormous (bigger than Obama's) socialist handout program (but not to smaller privately owned farms who lost more). It also doesn't count the thousands of good jobs, factories, and farms permanently lost.
For all that money we still have no trade agreements and are in a worse position to negotiate one than when he started. No country trusts Trump's administration to fulfill it's obligations, so most negotiations are grinding to a halt.
All told, it's costing the U.S. well over $100 billion per year for just this one facet of Trump's total failures at negotiation and his utter ignorance of international trade and finance.

Winning!?! Only if you're Russia or Iran.

*quality factory farm fresh.

Both of your examples are demonstrably false.

Masaai have a life expectancy of what 44? http://www.bbc.co.uk/northamptonshire/features/2004/maasai/maasai_03.shtml


Who eats the most fish in the world? (factory farm cows actually) but in the human population, it's the Inuits. And they have the worst health of any people on earth. So clearly fish aren't the thing bringing the health. Their health actually gets better when they go to a standard american diet. that's how bad eating fresh wild caught fish is.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LvGiiZyn-M

Okinawans have the opposite diet of the Inuits - mostly plants, and little amounts of fish, and they have the opposite health of the Inuits too.

Less fish and more plants = better health. Therefore fish cannot be a health food.


It's also VERY easy to meet all of your nutritional needs as a vegan, yeah those hippie dippy idiots that eat all raw foods are asking for trouble, but anyone who eats regular food with grains, beans, fruit, nuts and vegetables will get everything they need. A few fortifided foods here and there and no supplements are required. (and please don't pretend like vegans are the only ones eating fortified foods- salt is fortified with iodine, and dairy is fortified with vitamin D by US law). Anyway, point is the cheapest and easiest foods to cook are the healthiest ones - the same foods that everyone in the bluezones eats, and nobody is saying those bluezone foods are expensive or hard to make.

That's what this whole video is about, identifying the foods that are health promoting, and in vegans and in Mediterranean diets (and other bluezones diets) it's the exact same foods that are providing the health. The plants, the cheap, easy to cook and readily available plants.

I'll even level with you, there's a lot of stupid people out there who happen to be vegan and they say a lot of stupid crap, but everything I post is backed up by science. I went vegan because of the health science, the ethics to me came later (perhaps I'm a bit slow, because I didn't want to see the ethics, while I was part of the system, but that's a story for another time )

Living in Thailand, I've grown to really appreciate locally grown meat and produce in comparison to massive factory farm stuff.

One good example: Tilapia fish. Back home in the US, I thought Tilapia was disgusting. It tastes like algae, because they are raised in man-made concrete tanks and fed exclusively on algae that is easy to grow. They won't breed in those conditions, so they have to pump in hormones to basically force them to reproduce, more hormones to make them grow quickly, etc. etc.

Here in Thailand, I live in a town close to a lake. If you go to the lake you can see huge enclosures made of nets, which keep the Tilapia contained but otherwise living very normal fish lives. They get a natural lake diet of insects, plants, etc., no need to give them any extra food. They reproduce without any encouragement.

Talk to one of the fish farmers, and they will pull up some of the net and present you with several fish to choose from. Point one out and they will pull it out, smack it on the head to kill it instantly, and then scale and gut it for you and put it in a bag. From alive in the lake to dinner in 15-20 minutes.

Or, if you go to a local market in town, people have stalls set up that serve the middleman function. They go to the lake and buy 20-50 Tilapia to put into a big tank in the back of their pickup, and keep them alive in there for a day or two until they are sold, for a slight markup so you don't have to drive out to the lake.


Roughly the same thing applies to pork, chicken, and most fruits and vegetables. Somewhat for beef also, but there is less of that since most Thais follow a branch of Buddhism that discourages killing/eating cows. So, gotta go to the Islamic Thai shops for beef.

Maybe the system here is old-fashioned, quaint, or a bit backwards ... but everything is really nice, fresh, and tasty compared to supermarket stuff back in the US.

With logic like Ben Rukle's, I'm surprised he's not advocating Soylent Green:
It's full of nutrients that people need, since it's made from people.
It's environmentally friendly because humans are a renewable resource.
It's ethical cause people these days live comfortable lives, so it's fine to kill them in their teens.


The good old "killing humanely" argument. Yes it's better than factory farming, but killing a human in a nicer way is still murder by law, and so is treating them nicely before killing them.
If ethical living is his goal, then he's failed.

I've also heard his story many times. Eats mainly vegan junk food, which lacks nutrients (as does all processed junk food), and then somehow links that to all vegan food being unhealthy.

This is why I'm always banging on about eating unprocessed whole foods, they are nutrient dense.

You'll also notice that at the end they are eating specifically processed meat - the type proven to cause cancer. (as well as the worlds #1 killer heart-disease).
If he wants healthy food, then he's failed.


When it comes to sustainability, foods like potatoes, rice, and grains give you the most calories output for energy/water/land put in.
There also simply isn't enough land on the planet to farm animals this way and feed everyone.
If he wants sustainable farming, then he's failed.


Also he looks like he's about 2 years late for a heart-attack.

I've been called an oxy-moron
Because I question which drugs our war's on
Why are there more drug stores than liquor stores
You can score on
The healers have become the harmers
They're just pharmaceutical farmers
What we used to call dealers
We now call doctors
I might be a seedy cynic
Cause that crack house is now a clinic
It's time they change the name of the oath to
The hypocritic or the parasitic

It isn't adder-altruistic
By over prescribing
How can we fight them in a [?]
I'll throw a proz-accusation
With a sub-keta-meaning
They'll say my fears are quaa-ludicrous
They should be ati-vanishing
With every demurr-altercation
They'll have a good xan-explanation
You're just cialis-tated
Cause we made your dick deflated

It's oxy-moronic
It's oxy-moronic

It should be doctors getting busted
For their klon-opinions we trusted
We're not the sinners there the ones
That served us the vico-dinners
I don't want to be an alarmist
But in that harmacy there's a harmacist
And those scrips are making us [?] minded pacifists

It's oxy-moronic
It's oxy-moronic
It's oxy-moronic

Don't think that I am being crazy
The medical industrial complex
Keeps us vi-aggravated and hard to come
Because of perco-sex
How can we hydro-condone
Their blatant misconduct
They don't care for patients
They care about pushing product

Are you oxy-moronic
For wanting your daily chronic
And making your mom's house hydroponic
You're oxy-moronic

I've been called an oxy-moron
For getting my metaphor on
Linoleum is the floor on
I'm an oxy-moron

It's time to be alarmed
We're not being healed
We're being harmed
Our country's being factory farmed
It's Oxy-moronic
It's time to sound to alarm-a
We can't put our faith in karma
We got a common enemy
And they're called Big Pharma

And it's oxy-moronic
And it's oxy-moronic
It's all oxy-moronic
It's all oxy-moronic

Daily chronic, now most of your house is, okay
"Most of your house is" what does that even mean?
He's turned most of his house into hydroponic
Why wouldn't he have turned all of it into hydroponic?
Well cause he lives there
"Now all of your house is hydroponic"
Most is sappy
Really? It's like saying maybe
How about "Now your mom's house is hydroponic"
Yeah! That's fucking way better
God you fucking woke up
Come on Mike, where you been
Where you been all month?

*promote

Well, there we differ.

I don't engage anymore with people who are so passionate about their beliefs, they insult others. There is nothing I can say that will change them.

What was posted was just fine, just as it was.

Did you know that there are a disproportionate number of vegetarians in Britian? And there are a lot of them? So they have an interesting population to study.

I read somewhere that vegetarians, on average, have a higher IQ than the general population. Makes sense to me -- they read, they empathize, they question. That all takes intelligence.

It really doesn't matter to me if they "go too far." That is just passion. That is how change happens -- folks on the fringe pulling us sluggards in the middle out of our complacency.

I have more trouble the Sanders contingent than I do with vegans. Same dynamic -- they are passionate about their topic, and they don't differentiate between compromise and selling out, and if they keep this shit up, if Hillary gets the nomination, Trump might actually win.

Now THAT is over the top behavior that has real consequences.

Being passionate on the Sift is fine. If you don't like it, I honestly think it is better not to engage. Keeps your blood pressure down. Since trying to change their minds (on any passionately held topic) is fruitless, you are actually ahead.

You get low blood pressure!

(And I agree that we "should" have a mostly plant based diet. For a multitude of reasons -- health, the environment, limited resources, water usage, the list is pretty long before you even get to the abuse that animals in factory farms suffer. Do I have a plant based diet? No. Do I feel shame for not doing what is right? Yes. Am I going to change? No. "Should" I change? Yes. Do I enjoy the passionate and scolding posts made by friends on Facebook? No. Do I stop following them to "save" myself? No.

Instead of the Art of War, I am trying to practice the Art of Disengagement. Better for my health!)

So sorry that your quote is being down voted.

Clearly, those folks don't have loved ones who are vegan for ethical reasons, and don't understand the pain of being so empathetic.

I'm not vegan, I'm not even vegetarian. And I know that vegans are smart, caring and intelligent.

Condolences on this reception to accurate words.

(When even hard core Republicans like George Will say that our factory farm practices are horrendous, you know that they damn well are.)

Let's be realistic, most of the work our war planes do has collateral damage. We don't simply use them on 'the bad guys', but again that is a simplification to allow you moral latitude.

Non-smokers are no better than smokers, I know since I used to be a smoker. Just because I decided that I no longer wanted to smoke doesn't mean I feel the need to go up to someone smoking and start telling them how much better I am that I quit. Again, I'm not any better of a person than they are, I just chose to do something different. That is one of the things you can't seem to grasp, because you continue to say that morally you are more good than someone who does not practice a vegan lifestyle. You aren't.

As far as the functional capacity for feelings, of course animals feel pain, it is a stimuli that helps in their survival instinct. That instinct is what drives them to avoid pain because it means they might not survive. It doesn't mean that they have the logical thought capacity to relate pain to more than an instinctual response. I am pretty sure that no pig ever felt pain and said to itself, I feel pain therefore I exist as a being, they felt the pain and instinct told them to get away from it. Plants even have stimuli that they will respond to in order to grow or try to avoid damaging forces, but they aren't self-aware. Neither are animals until you get to a certain level of intelligence, like dolphins or great apes.

I grew up in the country, I have seen first hand and used my hands in regards to the butchery you speak of. Never once have I had a pig who had seen another be slaughtered do anything that would give me the belief that they were responding in any other fashion than a "shit, flight time since I might be next" natural instinct that is in all prey animals. Factory farms may not be totally humane, and that should be reformed, but all they are doing in the end is killing prey animals on a much larger scale than I did growing up.

There is nothing inherently immoral about creating weapons. The problem lies in what they are used for. Just like the most basic of tools, a hammer can be used to build or to kill. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have invented the hammer. The onus is on the person using it.

In either case, that has little to do with the factory farming holocaust.

What you did there is called an appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. You're saying vegans aren't morally perfect, so they have no place to tell us about morality. It's a derailment of the actual issue just like how you've previously used an appeal to nature, and an appeal history as well.

After that most people try the appeal to futility. And failing that they'll say something completely illogical such as "bacon tho" just to "win" the conversation, because it's not possible argue with something that unreasonable.

Like I mentioned in one of the other comments, I've said all of this myself in the past, I 100% believed it in the past, but eventually coming to the logical conclusion that I was wrong. I only had to accept that all of the animal exploitation I contributed to in the past was wrong, and decide that I no longer want to be apart of it. I can't take back the stuff I did, but to continue doing so knowing fully the extent of the consequences would be the poorer choice.

You don't need to morally perfect in order to solve a very obvious problem. As with war as well, it's often it's about choosing the less bad option, after weighing in all consequences.

So, vegans don't believe homo sapien erectus is part of nature?

Ever see how terrifying every day is for your typical herbivore in the wild?
I'm not saying the factory farms aren't cruel, they are, and they should be abolished, but your typical small-farm animal lives in the lap of luxury before the axe falls (and quickly).

Nature (and corporations) are cruel, man typically isn't.

Even if the lamb has the best treatment in the world, to eat it, it has to be killed as an infant, it's only months old.

I'm not blaming anyone, I was just as oblivious as anyone else to all of this for most of my life, and that's why I like to point it out these days, and perhaps help someone just like the younger me to identify the inconsistencies in the thought (or lack of thought) process. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to see the beauty of a young deer and feel obligated to save her life one minute, and next minute eat something just as young and precious without even a single neuron firing about what had to happen to the lamb in order for it to end up on a plate.

People will stop for ducks crossing a round, and then go through a fried chicken drive through. People will spend 1/2 their lunch break admiring pictures of kittens, but eat a lamb or veal (and when you compare a lamb to a kitten they look very similar and just as cute).

If that younger me was reading this, I know I'd be getting angry and frustrated at this comment, ready to throw a barrage of counter arguments such as "lions eat animals". But that is only a good thing, that frustration, anger and annoyance is the logical side your brain fighting tradition and habit side. It's a good thing if it's causing you frustration, because it means you do have a logical side at least and even perhaps on a subconscious level the brain is trying to work out the inconsistencies


And of course sheep are very much victims of factory farming these day : http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/press_releases.php?release=150