"Claiming to be at the top of the food chain has become a popular justification for eating animal products and an affirmation of our ability to violently dominate everything and everyone. Yet justifications for needless violence that draw on notions of power and supremacy are based on the philosophy of “Might makes right” — the principle behind the worst atrocities and crimes of human history."

"We humans are not at the top of anything. We are merely part of an interdependent web of life that forms complex yet fragile ecosystems. We choose to either participate in the protection of these natural systems, or to destroy them at our own peril. The concept of a food chain is a human construct that imposes a rigid and competitive hierarchy among species, rather than a good faith understanding of the complexity of the ecosystems to which we belong. Selectively appealing to biological determinism also ignores the fact that we are moral agents. By choosing plant foods, we can get our nutrients through primary sources of nourishment, in the most environmentally friendly and resource-efficient way possible, minimizing our harm to other animals, humans and the planet."

http://freefromharm.org/common-justifications-for-eating-animals/breaking-food-chain-myth/

I'd lean more towards enouraging men to be autodidacts and polymaths than specialists and experts. The latter relies upon society to survive, but society relies on the former to survive. Indepednance is always prefereable to interdependance in my mind. A jack of all trades, master of none, is always better than a master of one.

I'd remove 'change a diaper' from that list by Robert Heinlein and replace it with 'make a baby, deliver a baby'.

The original stroryline is a chicken or the egg paradox.

If old Joe's wife is murdered by the Rainmaker and yet him going back in time causes this to happen in the first place, which was the originating cause of it all? If the two are interdependent on each other occuring, the answer has to be neither.

1. completely, utterly vague. Chances are, Exxon will still receive their subsidy.

2. mostly unrealistic. america is #1 energy hog and neither technology advancements nor more drilling here will solve that or feed that gluttonous thirst. we are dependent on foreign energy, which is partly why we have 450 military bases around the world. We need to reduce need, and to do that, we need to re-examine our role in the world as pure consumers.

3. Vague. While education is of the highest necessity, throwing a job training program at it ain't gonna help. The system, which is based on the idea of an assembly line, needs to be revised, and teaching needs to be valued as a higher profession.

4. Pay a little more? The rich need to pay a whole fuckload more. A thriving economy is based on a fluid, interdependent economic web, not a trickle down hierarchy.

6 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Why the double standard with climate change?

Surely you don't consider those the same thing?

Toxicity is pretty simple. You run a test feeding creatures cyanide, and they always die if you give them enough.

By comparison, climate change involves interdependent processes that span virtually every branch of known science. I work in an academic environment and have seen what frequently comes out of inter-disciplinary studies. It comes out with stuff like the first link I gave above. Some climate guys who aren't very good with math go ahead and use a misapply a statistical method. That misuse is KNOWN and EXPECTED to give a falsely zero-biased result in the situation the climatologists misapplied. The climatologists then unknowingly went ahead and declared the zero-biased results they received as unique and important evidence that past climate change had little variance from zero. The reality, as evidenced in the article I linked, shows that the truth of the matter is that much better statistical methods exist for the application, and when they were applied by the climatologists, low and behold the historic variation leapt up, so much so as to make the last 100 years no longer look anything like the anomaly they did before.

With climate change there are a million variations and possibilities. The most important question to answer is just how imminent and severe are the effects we are facing. The most straight forward test is the one that Mann et al wowed the IPCC and the world with, showing that the temperature change over the last 100 years was unlike anything in the last 2 thousand. It turns out though that in truth, Mann's original results were an artifact not of human emissions, but of human error in math. Mann's new results show that the earth has been as warm as today multiple times over the last 2k years, and that in that time temperature has previously dropped just as fast as it rose in the last hundred.


As to what to do with unknowns, it still depends on the assumptions you come in with. What percentage do you want to lower emissions by? How much of a difference will that make to future temperature? What is the cost of lowering emissions by that much? What are the costs of dealing the increased temperature instead?

It's not a simply problem with some easy logical answer that is independent of those questions. What's worse, is now those questions not only span scientific fields, but they bleed over into economics and political science as well.

Your assessment before marks the cost of lowering CO2 emissions as moderate and the costs of not lowering them as potential huge. If the cost of lowering CO2 emissions is to be kept moderate, it means not lowering them by very much or not lowering them very quickly. Either way, it means if the effects of CO2 are drastic, we are STILL going to have to adapt significantly in addition to the money spent on reducing emissions. It sounds to me like just a variation on my own suggestion to be honest. A modest investment in battery and nuclear infrastructure, and adapt accordingly with the impacts that doesn't cover or accommodate. The most dire and immediate adaptations are ones that need to be made anyways, so I again don't see the risk as severe as others claim. It's not as though New Orleans was all peachy and good until things got warmer. A city on the coast below sea level, or islands a few feet above sea level could use a lot of dollars spent on adaptation even if we lowered emissions to the point of lowering sea levels by a foot.

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^A10anis:
>> ^criticalthud:
@A10anis
uhh...this is kind of like a story that needs to be told again and again until it is within the very fabric of our society, as religion is. but it isn't right now. this is still almost a fringe viewpoint.
I would add though that in this battle between rationality and superstition lies common ground - the simple understanding that a most religious people, deep down, find religion partly because of some sense of purpose. and that should be honored. We self-called "rational" beings often come off as condescending...and in our young and petty consciousness, our own understanding of the universe and the cosmos is hardly advanced. we are hardly "higher intelligence". and if we want other people to get over themselves, we should probably do the same.

Meaning no disrespect, but could you possibly articulate your points in a way thet people who speak english would understand. If you are not english speaking, then forgive me, i'm sure you meant well.

happily!
yes, if i were a religious sort and I saw this video, I could come away with the feeling that I am being labeled as scared, primitive, or dumb. My reaction would probably be to stick to my guns with even more zest.
I think a better approach would be to focus on what we have in common - that is, a sense of purpose to do good in this world...and go from there.
While fear and the endless search for security are certainly psychological factors contributing to the appeal of organized religion, there are many positives to dwell on instead. You get more flies with honey.
and rather than debate whether there is a god or no god, or the stupidity therein, I think it is about time to start contemplating whether we can even conceive of what "god" is or could be. We seem to be stuck upon the idea that god is a "being", whereas the world and universe around us seems to suggest that we are surrounded by a complex collective planetary intelligence and interdependency that we are barely even skimming the surface of.


Shush. You are a pseudo intellectual.

>> ^A10anis:

>> ^criticalthud:
@A10anis
uhh...this is kind of like a story that needs to be told again and again until it is within the very fabric of our society, as religion is. but it isn't right now. this is still almost a fringe viewpoint.
I would add though that in this battle between rationality and superstition lies common ground - the simple understanding that a most religious people, deep down, find religion partly because of some sense of purpose. and that should be honored. We self-called "rational" beings often come off as condescending...and in our young and petty consciousness, our own understanding of the universe and the cosmos is hardly advanced. we are hardly "higher intelligence". and if we want other people to get over themselves, we should probably do the same.

Meaning no disrespect, but could you possibly articulate your points in a way thet people who speak english would understand. If you are not english speaking, then forgive me, i'm sure you meant well.


happily!
yes, if i were a religious sort and I saw this video, I could come away with the feeling that I am being labeled as scared, primitive, or dumb. My reaction would probably be to stick to my guns with even more zest.
I think a better approach would be to focus on what we have in common - that is, a sense of purpose to do good in this world...and go from there.
While fear and the endless search for security are certainly psychological factors contributing to the appeal of organized religion, there are many positives to dwell on instead. You get more flies with honey.

and rather than debate whether there is a god or no god, or the stupidity therein, I think it is about time to start contemplating whether we can even conceive of what "god" is or could be. We seem to be stuck upon the idea that god is a "being", whereas the world and universe around us seems to suggest that we are surrounded by a complex collective planetary intelligence and interdependency that we are barely even skimming the surface of.

I upvoted this because I believe this is part of the future of science. It is easy to dismiss these concepts as new age touchy-feely stuff and poo-poo it out of hand.

But it is similar to something discussed in this vid http://videosift.com/video/Dark-Energy

70% of the universe is unexplained and for "placeholder" purposes, it is now called Dark Energy, until scientists can figure it out. This wasn't even a question 50 years ago, now our brightest minds are looking into it.

"Gaia consciousness" could well be the Dark Energy of the future.

Until then, whether it exists or not, it is fact that we are seriously screwing with the ecosystems of this planet. So whether there is "collective intelligence" or not, we had better get on to seriously changing our behavior.

>> ^criticalthud:

They're still engaged in a primitive debate.
Conceptually, we can't even get passed the notion that god is a singular "being" like us, rather than a vast intellectual complexity - that only becomes more complex as evolution continues. and we are all part of that process. recycled energy in an infinite process.
we're just so fucking self-centered that we miss the the intelligence that is all around us, and just how interdependent we are on the biodiversity we are mindlessly destroying.
we miss the fact that there is a collective intelligence of this planet, without which, we would be nothing. and instead of nurturing it, we're jerking off.

They're still engaged in a primitive debate.
Conceptually, we can't even get passed the notion that god is a singular "being" like us, rather than a vast intellectual complexity - that only becomes more complex as evolution continues. and we are all part of that process. recycled energy in an infinite process.

we're just so fucking self-centered that we miss the the intelligence that is all around us, and just how interdependent we are on the biodiversity we are mindlessly destroying.

we miss the fact that there is a collective intelligence of this planet, without which, we would be nothing. and instead of nurturing it, we're jerking off.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
Umm I wouldn't call that a "dumb comment" I'd call it an uncharacteristically honest comment. It's like saying we can't stop starting wars with helpless countries, because it's too profitable.

So, the Iraq and Afghanistan missions will start turning a profit sometime soon?

It already has for the people who matter. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater (Xe). Seriously are people this ignorant about who benefits from these wars?

Oh, right. I forget how simplistic the decision process for American foreign policy was. I was under the mistaken belief that there were a multitude of interdependent and complicating factors involved.

There's other factors of course but the important one is does this benefit the owners of the society. I mean doesn't that make sense?


No, the notion of a society's owners within a democratic nation doesn't make particularly strong sense to me.

Halliburton made a fortune off American government contracts, thanks to the decisions of their former VP as the American VP. Of course that is significant.

The attacks of 9/11 happened shortly before the decision to go to war in Afghanistan. Was that not just as, dare I say more, significant?

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
Umm I wouldn't call that a "dumb comment" I'd call it an uncharacteristically honest comment. It's like saying we can't stop starting wars with helpless countries, because it's too profitable.

So, the Iraq and Afghanistan missions will start turning a profit sometime soon?

It already has for the people who matter. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater (Xe). Seriously are people this ignorant about who benefits from these wars?

Oh, right. I forget how simplistic the decision process for American foreign policy was. I was under the mistaken belief that there were a multitude of interdependent and complicating factors involved.


There's other factors of course but the important one is does this benefit the owners of the society. I mean doesn't that make sense?

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^Yogi:
Umm I wouldn't call that a "dumb comment" I'd call it an uncharacteristically honest comment. It's like saying we can't stop starting wars with helpless countries, because it's too profitable.

So, the Iraq and Afghanistan missions will start turning a profit sometime soon?

It already has for the people who matter. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater (Xe). Seriously are people this ignorant about who benefits from these wars?


Oh, right. I forget how simplistic the decision process for American foreign policy was. I was under the mistaken belief that there were a multitude of interdependent and complicating factors involved.

It hurt so badly, too. Only it didn't.

He doesn't know me, yet he believes everything I said to him comes from Ayn Rand, someone I've never read. That shows his complete arrogance and ignorance, and it's why I try to ignore his subsequent -- and once again amazingly ignorant -- post.

He refuses to listen to logic/reason, so he keeps on rambling in an attempt to associate anything I say to whatever he feels like associating it with, in this case Ayn Rand. Call this a weak swing and a miss on his/her part, as they have no understanding of who they're even speaking with, meanwhile, they're taking my post completely out of context.

Note how he takes everything I said about fiscal responsibility and living within your means out of context and applies it to an interdependent society, which is off subject. He turned a discussion into an argument, lost that argument, and therefore begins to remove context and add new context to the discussion in an attempt to make his invalid point more valid.

Point remains, people can and do live within their means (fiscal responsibility), which was the original context of my point/of this discussion. I never spoke on the fact that we are interdependent as a society and rely on others, or the fact that we were raised by others who assisted us to get where we are, as it had nothing to do with the point of fiscal responsibility being a real thing.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^jwray:
Your profound ignorance of rhetorical devices is astounding, but somewhat less so in light of your poor choice of words to describe your beliefs:
I do not live beyond my means. I do not spend more now expecting everything to work out later, as sometimes it doesn't work out as we expect.
That precludes important investments, such as going to college.
You seem like the kind of guy who got a major hard-on for self-sufficiecy from reading Ayn Rand, without much thought about the interconnectedness of all things and how self-sufficiency is only illusory. That is what I was getting at with references to childhood. Everybody has relied on spending other people's money for the food, clothing, & education of their childhood. You weren't the one bringing home the bacon when you were two. Is it too much of a stretch from that to letting the government provide some services, which taken together are just as important, by spending other people's money? All they have to do to balance the budget is stop bailing out wall street, stop the wars, and raise taxes on people who make >$1 million/year by a few percent.


Oh snap, he just Ayn Randed you ass.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^That's the penalty for living in an interdependent society. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a "true" libertarian society- but I'm pretty sure that the roads would be shit - and paved with a different substance every 500 meters.