you have people living in artificial environments that use tons of power because they want to, because they like it, not because they REQUIRE it. native americans lived in southwest USA for a thousand years just fine without the need of AC or diverting rivers.

go read up on the absurd agricultural subsidies tied to the colorado river- that isnt a problem created because farmers need to produce food to feed the world, its a problem created because politicians want money making businesses to tax, and because people are willing to spend money to eat what they like instead of what there is, a lot of money is made.

same with trawling- nothing to do with feeding all those people, everything to do with money. trawling has been going on for over a hundred years, well before the world population was even a 3rd of what it is currently- fishermen trawl because they want to be efficient because that makes them more money, not because they are concerned about how they are going to feed undernourished people.

the problem isnt getting people to eat insects. the problem is getting the developed world to stop eating so much, especially so much meat. there is an obesity epidemic around the world, over 3000 tons of food are discarded every day, and you want to tell me the problem is not enough food?

and lets not be disingenuous about nuclear waste, nuclear technology was invented as a weapon, not an energy source. you're telling me that if tomorrow a terrible plague wiped out 90% of the earths population, that nuclear armed states would give up their nuclear weapons? bs.

the video is on point. the environmental crisis is caused by greed, not because there are too many people on the planet. and if you feel so strongly that there are too many people on the planet, I assume you are relieved when your family members die? Unless you are willing to volunteer yourself and your family to die for the greater good, overpopulation is a facile bogey man to mask what you really want to say- lets get rid of all those "other" people so *I* dont have to change my own lifestyle.

Badly titled.
It should be ...the delicious avocado is artificially selected deliciousness just like tomatoes.

Why is there so much nuclear waste? Because we have so many people living in artificial environments that require tons of power.

Why is the Colorado river becoming almost drained and getting worse each year? Because of climate change, yes, but primarily because we have millions of people living in desert regions and agricultural crops like almonds that require laughable tons of water. Most of those almonds are turned into flour and milk products because people refuse to eat other food, or can't because they should be dead due to allergies.

Why are we overfishing and using such harmful methods as trawling? Because we have too many people that want a specific kind of food or can't afford a different type of food.

Could we switch everyone to insect proteins or other radical foods like spirulina? Yes, if you want riots. The technology doesn't exist that can make sustainable foods taste the same and people would go apeshit.

So to sum up, yes, we could feed people without damaging the environment, if you could get people to agree to it. Think of trying to force vegans to chomp on insects. As far as habitats, not so much. We don't have the room for the sheer numbers of people without either doing away with food producing land, destroying existing ecosystems like the rainforest, or putting them in artificially sustained areas like large cities or hot/cold desert terrain.

Nature used to take care of these situations via epidemics or natural selection. We have adapted to the point where we can beat most epidemics (although soon we will be hit with something bad if we look at the super bacteria we are creating) and we protect the people who should be dead against their own stupidity.

Climate change isn't going to kill this planet first, the sheer population rise will wipe it out much sooner than that. By 2030 it is estimated we will have 8+ billion people, by 2050 close to 10 billion. Exponential growth is going to suck this planet dry as a bone. The day is coming when we will HAVE to start supplementing food with non-standard food types and soon after that we will wipe out most of the living food items on this planet like a horde of locusts.

Living here among these giants makes me realize all the more how detached from nature I was when I was living in cities.
Living in such an artificial environment can make people think they can live without nature, since they don't really see it in their daily lives, (except in the air they breathe, the water they drink, and some of the food they eat).
It's hard to appreciate what you don't know.

I hope you don't feel like that I'm pushing anything onto you. I'd like to just present the facts. I wasn't vegan until I turned 33, so I'm certainly not judging or trying to give out this information in order to put anyone down or elevate myself. I'm not trying to troll, I'm not trying to out-do you. I'm also typing this with limited time, so apologies if some of it sounds frank. (The videos below do a better job than me anyway).

1) A proper plant based diet makes it 8 times less likely for cancer cells to grow. There is a reason why 3rd world countries (that have largely plant based diets due to poverty) don't get cancers us westerners have. Also the #1 killer in the western world is cardiovascular disease, in the US alone one person dies every 8 seconds from it. Which is around 400, 000 people a year.

I know you're sceptical. I was too. So here's some actual science from actual doctors, who have come these conclusions on proper peer reviewed and non biased / industry funded research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZtPGyLaiHE1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTf0z_zVs03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XVf36nwraw4


2)Vegans aren't anti-choice, they are pro life, pro planet. The actions of people eating animal products goes way further than a person choosing to eat something(sure they are typically ignorant of the consequences, as most of pre-vegans were too). When a large portion of the planet chooses to eat animal products it effects everyone, because it's destroying the planet through global warming, deforestation, dumping of animal agriculture waste and so on. It kills more animals than just ones being brutalised in cages. It will eventually kill us too. To me it seems like a bad idea to destroy the only place in the universe that we can currently live.
So by eating animal products you're really making a choice for you, for me, for my hypothetical grandchildren, and of course for the animal that almost certainly wants to keep being alive. So as a vegan I'd like you refrain for making choices that impact my life, and I'm standing up for the voiceless animals who would certainly object to your choice too.

3) As you (hopefully) saw in at least one of the videos above, there is nothing in meat which cannot be obtained from a plant source (and without all of the bad stuff that comes with meat).



Your idea of a farm with humanely raised animals is a good start, but it's just not practical, the earth isn't big enough to meet demand. It's also still highly unethical as you still kill the animals at an early age in order to harvest their flesh.

You have a picture of two dogs in your avatar. I'm sure if someone decided to schedule their lives to end early for any reason, let alone to eat them, you'd find that pretty immoral right? You no doubt treat your dogs very well, but that doesn't make it OK to kill when they reach adolescence. If I said I wanted to eat your dogs (I don't of course) then any reason you came up with applies still to any farm animals that you currently feel fine with eating.

The animals also aren't stupid and they're aware of what's going on. My grandparents owned a massive farm with cows/pigs/rabbits/chickens and crops as well. They were living very comfortable lives as far as farm animals go, but they did not like it when you approached them, they knew what was waiting for them.
When you see typical farm animals that are truly free this is what they look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIF3BYBXZWA
They behave like pets, even cows kick a ball around.

Also cows milk is only created for when the cow is pregnant. Even if the cow is living in cow utopia, if it is getting milked then that's milk that should have gone to a calf. It was most likely artificially impregnated, and also most likely bought from someone that breeds female cows, and kills the male cows (since you only need one bull to harvest the semen).
When you really think about it, even the best treated animals are being breed and used to make someone money as the primary goal. That is immoral.



So what it really comes down to is taste. The ethics, the environmentalism, the health don't play a role in the debate at all, and hopefully one of those things is important to you, perhaps all 3.

Being animal product free isn't as hard as you think, it's as simple as swapping out a few ingredients here and there. It's not all about eating broccoli and kale. You'll still be eating burritos, burgers, pizzas, pastas, curries etc. Just slightly different and before you know it, you'll barely know the difference, and eventually prefer them that way.

And this is probably the part I found the hardest to believe myself, but once I knew about it, veganism became the easiest thing in the world. Taste is completely influenced by the foods you eat, because of brain chemistry. I thought I could never stop eating two things: cheese and chocolate. After about a month of not eating them (and yes it takes a little bit of effort towards the 3 week mark) you will break the dopamine effect in your brain and you'll never want to eat them again. I can eat vegan cheese and dairy free chocolate, but it does absolutely nothing for me these days. This is coming from someone that wouldn't eat regular chocolate, I had to have the good stuff, everyday. The cravings get pretty intense at the 3 week mark, I won't lie, but then one day you realise you've not had the cravings for several days.
When it comes to meats, even if they are well done, all I can smell is oil and blood. Eggs all I smell is sulphur. I find all of that quite repugnant and I see them for what they really are, rather than what my dopamine recepters tell me.

Now of course you can be unhealthy vegan, and eat all of the oreos, chips, and dairy free chocolate you want. That's up to you, either way the planet and animals don't care which way you go about it

Let me be more precise:
- If someone wants to give her money for being attractive, for surfing, or for breeding bulldogs, I won't be outraged.
- If nobody wants to give her money for being attractive, for surfing, or for breeding bulldogs, I'm not gonna be outraged either.

I don't disagree at all that sponsoring her could make commercial sense. Being a good surfer can definitely help sell products, just like being hot can, or breeding an artificially designed dog breed can. That still doesn't mean that I see any injustice in somebody not getting paid for being a good surfer, being attractive, or raising bulldogs.

I would be more upset about teachers not getting paid, or developers of renewable energy solutions, or civil rights activists.

One of the things chimps will do is drag tree branches around for use in dominance displays in which they run at rivals, hair on end, screaming, throwing rocks, making as much noise as possible.

Jane Goodall described one of her chimps who discovered he could bang gas cans together to create an enormous racket, and in the use of which artificial aid he rapidly advanced from relatively low status to alpha.

Chimps use tools in other ways such as when 'fishing' for termites, or most incredibly for me, making absorbent sponges from chewed up leaves or moss. They learn these behaviours from each other: some chimp groups use some tools, some use others, some use none, and innovations spread rapidly within groups.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/understanding-buoyancy-using-archimedess-principle.html

The ball has air in it. The jumper used the artificial force of his weight to carry the ball well past it's buoyancy point. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the ball skyrockets.

Drop impact is different.

Thank you for proving my point. You appear to have missed that that the only difference is who is doing the judging.

Being racist is not a crime. Artificial insemination is not a crime.

So maybe we shouldn't fire people for doing things outside of work that have nothing to do with their jobs.

Interesting.
I'll be consistent and say yes, it's "fair" that she lost her job, as it's clear that her employers have an often stated interest in her reproductive system and firm rules on how it may or may not be altered, as a part of their faith, and properly following that faith is essential for being a good teacher...in their eyes. That means that having artificial insemination makes her a bad roll model, and being a near perfect roll model is a major part of the job.
EDIT: I wonder who ratted her out? She DID have a right to keep her personal medical information private, and those with access have a legal obligation to keep it private as well, so she DID get ratted on.

Also interesting was your comment/position there, which seemed to mirror mine here. In part, you said....
" Freedom cuts both ways, you're free to do what you want..but if you don't act within some semblance of societal norms and what is considered decent, no one is going to want to be around you or work with you. "
The business not wanting to work with him is what happened here, but now you seem to take issue with that, and you take serious issue with others boycotting the company (which didn't actually happen here, but you've been complaining that it did) while back then you seemed to be celebrating it. What changed besides the reason someone lost their job?

http://videosift.com/video/Catholic-School-Teacher-Fired-For-In-Vetro-Fertilization

The ONLY difference is I'm assuming that most of us on VS do not object to artificial fertilization. You'll notice that I'm making the same argument in that sift as I am now. The school has the legal right, but that it's a shitty thing to do and that it was shitty that someone ratted her out.

The only difference is who is doing the judging.

Is it still fair that the woman lost her job? If it's not fair for her to lose her job, then it's not fair for this guy to lose his job.

Again, we're not arguing legal rights. That's not in dispute.

I AM GAWWD AND I SHALL JUDGE YOU AND PUNISH YOU AS I SEE FIT!!!!

Maybe something to do with the ability to create new accounts and push your status up artificially? I dunno if that's a big problem or not though.

Me neither, but here's the explanation from above:

Chickens raised wearing artificial tails, and consequently with more posteriorly located centre of mass, showed a more vertical orientation of the femur during standing and increased femoral displacement during locomotion. Our results support the hypothesis that gradual changes in the location of the centre of mass resulted in more crouched hindlimb postures and a shift from hip-driven to knee-driven limb movements through theropod evolution.

Not torn at all here. They utilize the resources of a stable society then they have to provide their services to all their members without basis of discrimination. The other way of looking at it is this. Do gays and lesbians have the option to avoid paying taxes on this business owner's benefits? Ie., he probably went to public school, his water bills are artificially low, the roads that are serviced so people can get to his place, the police provided to protect and prevent crime in his area, etc.

If gays and lesbians can opt out of paying taxes for anyone who could potentially deny them services (ie, as of right now everyone) then they wouldn't have a problem.