Adam really does ruin everything - in this case, it's his credibility.

There are many reasons home ownership is better than renting - not the least being that you have far more flexibility in your lifestyle than a renter would. And while you are paying off a mortgage (which, in part, is subsidized by the mortgage deduction on your income tax) you are building equity and paying off the bank with progressively "inflated" dollars over the life of the mortgage (that's why they charge "interest"). The rents go up with the inflation, the mortgage payment doesn't (unless you are fool enough to buy into an adjustable rate mortgage). In the end, if you are careful and smart about when and where you buy, the home is nominally worth more than you paid (in inflated dollars - and possibly in constant dollars) and that value can be recovered if and when necessary. Renting, you walk away with a bunch of receipts...

Of course, if you are lazy and irresponsible in when and where you buy and how you maintain the home, then you could again walk away with nothing...

I'm glad you admit that freely. Many vegans insist the opposite.
Read the linked site, it gives at least one clear example of his cherrypicking.
The fact that he felt the need to put out a video to explain how he 'picks' studies is a good indicator that there's a problem.
He profits off the site by suggesting donations to his charity, and I think advertising videos, books, and paid appearances. It's totally disingenuous to suggest he doesn't profit in any way, he makes his living 'selling' this lifestyle, this particular site is, in essence, the advertising wing of his operation.

Absolutely false. He's outright saying that stopping eating meat, and nothing else, is equivalent to stopping smoking, which is an outright lie.
He sells a lifestyle, with books, blogs, websites, videos, and appearances for sale. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you claim to not have a financial tie to your movement or financial incentives to mislead and exaggerate. He clearly does, and lies about that too.

Insisting on honesty does nothing to remove personal responsibility for yourself. Please.

No one mentions Dr Williams because he's not making up studies or results, he's offering a personal opinion and explanation of his personal actions...not lying to convince others to follow suit out of misplaced fear....like your hero, "Dr" Greger.

It's proper to attack the zealous liar that's making a living selling lies....like "Dr" Greger, no matter when they appear on screen.

One more example of him lying....taking "Consumption of foods high in saturated AND industrially produced trans fats, salt, and sugar is the cause of at least 14 million deaths" and restated it as "consumption of animal foods (and processed foods) leads to at least 14 million deaths."...but the study conclusion he references doesn't mention animal foods at all, he just added that, and emphasized it over what the study actually said while completely omitting processed plant based foods, which are just as bad as the meat ones according to the study. That's lying. Lies like that make it difficult to take personal responsibility for your health, because you have to debunk them to get to the good advice/actual facts.

His blogs ask you to support a charity, that he owns, and buy his books, and see his appearances, etc. Likely he wasn't a great doctor, or yes, he probably could make more money that way (although maybe not, even though zealous people like you may be <2% of the US population, if 10% of you pay/make him $1 a year, he's making a MINT, WAY more than a normal practitioner, and with speaking fees, I'm sure he makes at least that...also, a doctor that tells his patients they must adopt a vegan lifestyle won't keep many patients.)

By "not clearly BS industry funded designer studies" you must mean any study that doesn't fit his narrative, because it's FAR from only industry studies that he ignores, and the few studies he actually supports, he exaggerates and misrepresents.

Yes, it did say they "may" be carcinogenic, and he quotes that as "it says that chicken and turkey are deadly carcinogenic cancer causing agents". That's absolute bullshit, making up statements and attributing them to reputable sources to garner support for your pet cause. He's a liar and exaggerator, so he's blown his chance to teach anyone anything.

I think your overestimating how much money is in charity appearances for an vegan audience(which is something like 1% of the population). Wouldn't be easier to make money from a product that targets the other 99% of the population?

If he wanted to make money, he can make a lot more by simply being a doctor. And a helluva lot more by prescribing statins and all of the other drugs used to counteract the side-effects of statins.

Or if he wanted the blogs and lifestyle thing, he could sell Paleo/Ketosis diets because it's a lot easier to sell books that tell people to eat bacon instead of vegetables.

You'll notice that his blog doesn't make money like other blogs do, as there are no ads, and he's got no industry sponsorship's.

If he's trying to make money, then he's doing a poor job.





As for cherry picking data, yes his opinions are formed by the studies that aren't clearly B.S. industry funded designer studies - The studies that are repeated over and over with small adjustments to make the outcome positive. But I know he reads even the industry funded studies, because he often points out why they are poorly constructed studies, designed purposely to show a specific outcome.


He makes a new video nearly every day, and has been doing so for nearly 10 years. That's some 3000+ videos. He's allowed one mistake.
But it's not even a mistake. This blogger is trying to discredit all of this work because of semantics about a W.H.O. report. (She didn't read the W.H.O report correctly, because it does actually say that poultry *may* be carcinogenic too).

Well...

Your arguments are the same kind used by black lung / coal miner or cancer / smoking skeptics. Sure, it seems like when we control for every other factor in longitudinal studies that these factors are strong predictors. But you can't guarantee that all coal miner will get black lung or a smoker will get cancer. So it must be some other lifestyle factor.

Same with climate change. Your right wing blogs / websites argue that just because you can't create a model with perfect certainty, the inexorable trend isn't obvious. No thanks, I'd rather go with a 97% scientific consensus that has convinced most scientific organisations, large multinational companies (without a countervailing interest) and national governments from America to China.

If you're so certain that the science is wrong, why not publish a countervailing journal article? Oh wait, no, you almost certainly don't have training in the field or actual understanding of the science, and are just copy pasting fancy phrases like "decadal scale oscillations" because it makes you sound more credible.

*ban
The Luxury Homes & LifeStyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AwJxz3PRnc

Not really a counter argument, because it presumes that there has been no human based change to the climate. Human based change to the climate has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I know people love to quote the 3% of scientists that believe there is either not enough information or that the other 97% are involved in a secret global conspiracy to make people believe in climate change, but lets be realistic. If you went to a doctor and he said there is a 97% likelihood that you will die if you do not change your lifestyle, would you be willing to bet on the 3%?

When you have people that have devoted their lives to studying a branch of science getting choked up with emotion at the likelihood that we will have a catastrophic incident in the next few decades, should you ignore them or try to come up with reasons why they might have a statistical gap of 3% of being wrong?

You can't get 100% of people to agree on anything, it's impossible simply due to human nature. But if you have a scientific result that is within a -3 percent of certainty, it's illogical to prevaricate.

"All you gay Muslims who will be condemned by even the moderates as sinful abominations that deserve death at least." Yes, tell it like it is Samantha...oh wait, you didn't. Sad part is Trump has supported the LBGT cause more than Hilary ever could...

Much like the homophobic Baptist preacher, but at least Christianity has come fairly reasonable (not too reasonable mind you) way towards letting individuals be individuals...even if they dislike their lifestyle.

Perhaps the 2nd amendment has just been taken out of context, maybe it's the right to "bear arms". So when you hunt bears you get to keep it's arms.


Or maybe it was a spelling mistake, and it's the right to "bare" arms. So everyone has a right to roll up their sleeves and wear singlets.


Either way basing your lifestyle on a out-dated document that is clearly not relevant to modern society, you might as well be praying to Zeus.

@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

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.

You can dance all you like, but you are still hypocritical. A war plane was never designed as anything other than a device to KILL. A hammer might have been used to kill, but it was not designed for it.

So, I am not trying to say you are less moral, I am just trying to get you to SEE that you are just as capable of making distinctions regarding your values as we are. We are all the sum of our parts, we choose moral stances and we choose to avoid others we consider to be less necessary. In choosing to follow the vegan dogma, you unfortunately have put yourself in a lifestyle that usually carries at least a thin veneer of "I am better than you", when in fact you have merely chosen to restrict your diet. It doesn't make you any better or worse than someone who chooses to quit smoking, or perhaps to only ride public transportation.

As far as winning, I have no intention of winning because this is an unwinnable discussion. I will neither be able to persuade you that you are being selectively moral and elitist, nor will you be able to persuade me that mankind should cease to partake in the flesh of other creatures (if we choose to). The most I can do is call you on your comments, you can take or leave my opinions the same way I would do yours.

I won't resort to a catchphrase like bacon, but the end result is the same, futile as you said.