The croissant is one of the most magnificent articles of pastry on earth and it should be treated with the proper respect.

How could it be that americans can't pronounce croissant correctly but they still insist on a pretentious, faux-french style for 'herb'? Just what is the matter with these people?

Listen, I'm british so that means I'm really smart and you have to do what I tell you. Croissant is pronounced 'kwa-sorn'; herb is pronounced 'herb'. If someone tells you otherwise, you slap them right in the mouth.

God knows what crimes @Gratefulmom has had to witness done to 'au jus'. "Oh, juice"?

@transmorpher
ha! right on man.

let me start that there really is no argument between us,just a disagreement by degrees is all.

you do not have to refute my claim that "veganism is carried out for the feeling of superiority."

because i never made that claim.
my criticism was specific and focused on a single person @ahimsa,who,if you read his commentary,is most certainly taking a morally superior stance.

if you compare how you were interacting and how ahimsa was interacting.the differences are quite stark.

you were quite open and honest on how you eventually reached veganism.(bravo my friend),but i didnt really see you berate or belittle someone for still eating meat,or being a non-vegan.

oh...you certainly argued your points and exposed weak and facile arguments.you offered new ways of looking at the situation,but you really didn't judge a person for not following your ways of thinking/being/doing.

basically you took responsibility for your choices.shared your reasons for those choices and have allowed people to make THEIR own choices.

how can you not respect that?
which is why i wanted to trade partners.
tongue in cheek of course..that was my way of giving you props and respect.

ahimsa,on the other hand,didnt even respect those he engaged with enough to even use his own words,and instead indulged in presumption,laziness and pretentious twattery.(god,i love that phrase.thank you britain!)

ahimsa approached veganism much the same way a newly born again person approaches talking about their new love for jesus,by proselytizing.

being a man of faith i can understand and relate to someone experiencing a profoundly life changing event,manifested by a serious epiphany and the desire to share that new understanding with everyone you meet.confident in an absolute certitude of righteousness.

but it can be so aggravating to be on the receiving end of such self righteousness,because there has been little time of actual examination and reflection.the newness and novelty cloud all other considerations and ANY rebuttal or deviation is seen as an affront,a sacrilege and blasphemy and therefore should be dismissed...entirely.

i suspect that ahimsa is young and his/her veganism is fairly new and fresh.this would explain the religious quality of his/her arguments.

YOU..on the other hand,have approached from a far more even handed and open way.choosing instead to use humor and wit to make your arguments while not judging those you disagree,allowing for a real dialogue which can lead to understanding.

so good on you mate.

i specifically like the fact you lay out your journey and the reasons why ,but you do not admonish those for not following the same path.which is the correct way to engage.

and what i REALLY dig,is that your argument is basically "this is how i came to where i am,and i am betting that you will to...eventually".

because,at it's heart,you are 100% correct.there really IS no reason to eat meat.

a person who eats meat really has only ONE reason and that is simply "because i want to".now there are cultural and racial reasons,long standing heritage and dishes passed down over generations,and you acknowledge that,because it really is important and is underlying reason why so many still eat meat(and because we want to).

but i suspect that your final argument is more correct than incorrect.meat will eventually go away and be replaced by something better and more healthy.

but that takes time.possibly a generation or two.maybe three.
you recognize this,while ahimsa does not.

i also suspect you may be heading on your way to old fartdom.

anyways,thanks for the dance mate.
you seem a righteous dude.

@ahimsa

and now we move to stage two of the predictable vegan argument:

distinctions.


oh fuck me with a razor bladed dildo this is some tiring and facile shit.

look man,you are seriously missing my main point:
pretentious twattery and a morally and philosophically inconsistent stance.

so you can keep quoting anybody and everybody because it is apparent you really do not understand what you are quoting,and it is not adding anything to our discussion...at all.

maybe..
possibly..
just something to consider...
you approach expressing the values and benefits of being a vegan sans the self-righteousness,the pretension and condescension?

that maybe because YOU became a vegan for moral and ethical reasons,others may have come to it from other means and for other reasons,and allow those who are NOT vegan to come to their own conclusions and make their own choices?

and maybe not be so judgey mcjudgerface if they choose differently than you?

look man,we all do something that gives us the "feel goods".

some recycle obsessively,even though there is little evidence that actually makes a difference.

others drive a hybrid and feel that is their contribution,even though it is actually worse.

some will only buy organic and/or shop locally.(thats me btw)
and even though this brings some coin to the local farmers,taken on a whole it is barely a blip against the monster that is wal mart.

i have friends who do beach clean up every year,even though it gets destroyed within a month.

so we all try to do something that fits our perceptions of the world and how we can make it a better place.

and yes..if we ALL got together we could make a massive change in the current dynamics,not only locally but globally.

so i get it mate..i really do.

i guess what i am suggesting at it's core is this:
stop acting like a newly converted jehovahs witness who just wants us all to hear about your new buddy jesus.

i also think i should share that my long time girlfriend is vegan.
not your judgey,self righteous,pretenscious type vegan..but a vegan.

and that girl can't cook worth a damn.
which means that cooking falls on ME.
do i still eat meat?
yep,but not that often and rarely..raaarely red meat.
and to my girls credit she never gives me shit,i may get the upturned nose but never actual verbal shit.

red curry anyone?

@ahimsa

seriously?
quoting to rebutt an obvious sarcastic comment?
is it that hard to even attempt to be even a tad original?
do you REALLY think i am promoting actual violence?
really?
and you respond with a level of pretentious twattery that you should be ashamed of.

are you even remotely aware you literally made my point on how some vegans lack the basic self-awareness to realize they are being massive hypocrites and tools?

you trot out those tired,and boring,self-effacing morality/ethics tropes as if they were written on mount sinai,and then have the audacity to not even own your own egocentric bullshit.

jesus..vegans are such intolerable pussies.

because YOUR vegan philosophy is egocentricism on narcissistic steroids,and you lack the basic self-awareness to even have the skills to acknowledge that you are literally smelling your own farts,and calling it wisdom.

there is another vegan on this site that i really wish would put his two cents in,because he at least is aware of the hypocrisy and is an absolute delight to engage with.

but YOU...
self-awareness may be too tall an order it seems.
as you rant and rail against the inhumanity and suffering of the agri-animal on a fucking machine that 10 yr olds assembled to put together in a country where they dont even have the most basic of necessities met.

sitting at a desk dressed in clothes that ANOTHER 8 yr old sewed together,working 18 hr days at 23 cents an hr and is beaten if she slacks,is late..or complains.

the list of human oppression,slave labor and human trafficking that YOU benefit from is legion,and your lack of your own hubris,privilege and hypocrisy is,quite frankly,offensive.

so you can sit there in your own little smug fart cloud and self-righteously condemn the rest of us for choosing to enjoy bacon and convince yourself of your own superior morality and purity of ethics,but the reality is this:

you don't give two fucks.
you are an over-privileged,over indulged little shit and is no better nor worse than the rest of who travel through this life..making our own choices and being responsible for them.

the ONLY thing you truly care about is your little habitat and how others behavior affects your tiny,precious little world.so you go ahead an be a vegan for "moral" and "ethical" reasons,because it gives you the "feel goods".

and i say this with all humanity and honesty:
if you are vegan for moral and ethical reasons,then good for you mate.you made a conscious choice and have stuck to it.bravo my friend.

but don't try to push your own little inane philosophy on the rest of us.we may be assholes for eating meat,but at least we are not hypocritical,contradictory assholes.

now if you want to discuss the benefits of a vegan diet.
great...i am down.
if you wish to share why being a vegan for YOU is a philosophy that works for YOU and is a choice YOU made...then great.i love understanding why people chose to do what they do.

but if you keep attempting to make this purely a morality and ethical dilemma,while ignoring YOUR own philosophical and moral inconsistencies.

well..then we have nothing more to speak about.
enjoy the smell of your own farts.

/cockpunched

I can't stand SvB nay-sayers anymore!

We get it... you're pretentious whiny dick-nerds who couldn't recognize a decent movie if it hit you in the face, and who love to shit on Zack Snyder

The movie is absolutely fine (with the exception of a few things).

The fact that it has a much lower fresh rating in Rotten Tomatoes than "The Room" (the Tommy Wiseau one), should be more than enough evidence to show just how fucking stupid the vitriol for this movie has become.

i had the privilege of hanging out with these two,and their newborn.really down to earth people and kristen is fucking hilarious.

oh look at me...name dropping..i am such a pretentious douche.

So pretentious, it's blinding.

Fixed fix for you.

Why can I not up-vote this comment more than once?! All I could think when I watched this video was, "What a bunch of pretentious bullshit!"

Good lord. I've seen less pretentious perfume adverts.

So its kind of a hovercraft without skirts? Revolutionary.

Sorry to be so flippant, I guess I just don't care much about FREEDOM.

@eoe
jesus christ dude..
could you be any more presumptuous?

first off,i didnt call you out specifically.
i rather enjoyed you and newts exchange,but my commentary was not addressing nor interjecting in that conversation.

second,the only argument (if you even want to call it that) that i proposed was to cut the moral absolutes out,because they are bullshit.

now maybe you do not engage in the morality argument that many ..MANY ...vegans DO attempt to utilize to better make their point,and hats off to you if you see the hypocrisy of such a tactic.

now please understand i am not ignoring that there is a morality factor in being a vegan and i totally respect that.what i am stating is to not become burdened with absolutes and attempting to use morality to further a position..or you will be called out on it and rightly so.

thirdly,
your comment is actually a straw man,not mine.
you posit a position i didnt take in order to refute that imaginary position.

which you took a step further by accusing me of not addressing certain aspects of an argument that i only tacitly referred to and in no specific or detailed way.

in fact almost your entire comment towards me is a fabricated argument that i never had with you.

so who are you arguing/debating with?
because i can say with some authority that it is not me.

maybe you took my tone or words as a direct assault on you or what you have written,but as anybody here will attest,i have no problem calling someone out directly.conversely,i have no problem being called out (if my fly is open,please let me know).

so if that is the case,allow me to offer an olive branch:
my girlfriend of many years is a devout vegan.
so i am full aware of the reasons why she became a vegan (at the tender age of seven,no shit) and for her the decision was mostly a moral one i.e:cruelty,abuse etc etc.

when we first started dating she attempted to use every tactic in the book to get me to see the barbarity in my callous and cruel meat eating ways.she would send me videos of the most horrific abuse of animals,slaughterhouse horror stories..i am sure you may be familiar with many of her tactics in attempting to reveal the moral imperative to stop this torture and abuse.

which i responded (much like alluded to in my original comment) by showing her videos of the horrific abuses perpetrated upon human beings just so she could have cheap clothing and those electronic gadgets she loves so much.

which of course made her feel absolute,crushing guilt.almost to the point where it paralyzed her.because she is an adorable sweetheart who genuinely cares for not only people but animals.

which leads me to the main point i was making:
you cannot make a vegan argument based solely on moral absolutes,because it will fall apart within seconds and you come across as a pretentious twat.

so YOU can make the decision to be a vegan based on moral grounds and that is totally acceptable,but you cannot take the moral high ground when debating veganism to further a point,because we ALL bear responsibility in the suffering of others.be they animal or human.

do you see what i am saying?

if you choose to indulge moral absolutes,then you will be exposed as a hypocrite,because when we use absolutes,that metric has to be applied equally to all factors of living.

which leaves us with the "distinctions" and the reason i say those are boring is because it becomes a narcissistic exercise of self-righteous twattery.

i recycle.
i refuse to shop at walmart.
i do not eat fast food.
i only buy organic.
i try to shop local.

all these things i do,not because they actually make a difference,but rather they make me feel better about myself.it gives me the "feel goods".even though i am full aware that in the larger picture,what i am doing means next to nothing.

but it means something to me.
and i think that is really the only real argument a vegan has to rely on to express their viewpoint.

i have seen the videos.
i am aware how awful,cruel and barbaric farming animals can be,but i like bacon.

i am an asshole.

Downvoting once a video is published - made it past 10 votes - doesn't really have the effect that you seem to be implying. It still makes it to the frontpage which is probably the only place where 90% of Videosift visitors ever go. Downvoting potentially keeps a video lower on - or off of - the top 15 list, which is fine by me because I feel the other videos there are more worthwhile.

But what bothered me, really, is that someone is being asked to account for their downvote. This has also happened to me at least twice (three times if you include this instance) and I find it a little strange. Rarely is someone asked to explicitly state why they liked a video or to give reasons that they watched a video but failed to vote for it.

Downvoting is an option for privileged members. The rules clearly state that we should not downvote based on who posted the video, but on the content alone. I have, on this day (yesterday), chosen to express my "meh" feelings towards a video with a downvote and may continue to do so in the future. I don't think that is rude or pretentious or denying other people any access or participation in this community. It's just me not sitting on the fence anymore.

More focus on the woodworking, less focus on the pretentious assholes who think they are putting a piece of feudal japanese culture into their mid-manhattan highrise.

Too bad we don't see the run up to this. I do hate me a group of pretentious, hypocritical bikers though.

Yup, same here. He made it sound like they were the only group that did anything worth anything back then. They would've never gotten anywhere without Warhol using his fame and promoting them extensively and were just stupidly artsy fartsy and pretentious; the mega-hipsters of the day.

I think why he disliked Beatles was that their debut album was released at the same time as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.. Warhol got them record contract in the first place and the album bombed (allthou has some legendary songs, no doubt) but without him no one would've heard about them since of before.

Also Reed has probably the worst "rock" album on his merit: Metal Machine Music.. Some idiots take that album seriously It's just two guitars leaning against amplifiers...