I don't think you've actually said much here to address the points I've made, and in fact they where not made towards your post, but the person you where replying to.

Which is what I meant by @the parent comment... as in the comment you where replying to.

Also, I think your writing style could merit some really good fiction. You certainly have projected quite a bit about me, and how other people view me in reality. It's actually kind of amusing... my comment leaving so much of an impression on you that your imagining what I must be like, how people must interact with me. It's almost like a fantasy.

I find it odd that you consider someone obtuse for not changing their entire world view just because meat is offered to them by someone. Should it matter the ethnicity of the person offering really? I wonder if you would eat human flesh because it would be arrogant to refuse based upon your selfish dietary restrictions.

You can frame this how ever you want, and it seems you are really good at abstract framing. Grandiose and descriptive ad-homonym attacks also seem to be your forte.... but they do little to address my points.

Firstly being their is an irrational culture of hate on the internet for vegetarians.

Secondly being that all suffering isn't equal. Even if someone might have suffered to get you that vegetable, it isn't likely that is was MORE suffering then animals who where mistreated by industry and factory farms their whole lives.

Thirdly this idea that vegetarians change their entire diet to feel 'better' then everyone else is absurd. It is more a manifestation of other people's (people who eat meat obviously) feelings then the feelings of vegetarians. I haven't eaten meat in maybe 15 years, and I've never felt 'better' then other people. I barely even tell other people unless they ask.

Just to drive this home...

What your basically saying is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... doesn't cause a greater level of suffering then buying a vegetable.

Sweet, vegan hate! Yeah, FUCK THEM! That's certainly an unpopular view on the internet! (The parent comment was rated as the highest comment today in fact.)

@the parent comment.

The idea that veganism or vegetarianism just isn't worth it because 'something always suffers' is a pretty big logically fallacy. Veg* people aren't trying to delude themselves into thinking nothing will suffer because of their existence, but to try to reduce the suffering caused.

My sister is 2 years younger then me. At a certain point she could count, but didn't understand that different coins have different value. I figured out pretty quickly that I could give her 5 pennies in exchange for 2 quarters and she would be happy. 5 is obviously more then 2.. duh.

That's the same type of logical fallacy your displaying here. Not all suffering is equal. For instance, in some places animal's skulls are smashed and their brains are eaten while they are alive. This has been done to primates, no less. I've seen preparations for duck that stipulate the duck must be alive while being cooked. I've seen videos where Japanese chefs keep frogs alive and gut them for the novelty of eating something that can watch you eat it. What your saying is, doing this isn't really any worse then buying a vegetable, because maybe it was grown an a farm that might be exploitative in some way.

Your lack of acknowledgment that suffering can vary in intensity or severity is intellectually dishonest. Not all suffering is made equal, but I'm pretty sure you know that. I doubt you think the last time you suffered was just like dieing in slowly in Auschwitz. http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-am-so.../

You're operating under the assumption that vegetarians choose their food in order to make you feel bad (it's all about you, right?) and so you feel personally attacked. Since you feel attacked you don't mind a little bit of intellectual dishonesty in your counter attack, and I get that. I'm just saying you seem at least reasonably intelligent, and I think you can aspire to better.

It's like saying 'why should I stop killing people, people are still going to die.' Or "Why should we sign this peace treaty, war will still exist."

I grow quite a bit of my own food. In fact, I actually cleared my garden plot from several invasive species (like spider wort, crocosmia, and agapanthus) so I didn't even displace any indigenous wildlife... which really matters on an island like this one.

Far from suffering, I really enjoyed my time gardening. I find it helps when I get burned out from the very cerebral tedious work I do (things like designing the AI in video games and writing symphonies) to just put my hands in the dirt and do something simple.

So this idea that my food HAS to be the product of suffering is not only an absurd rationalization, but it's also false. I certainly didn't suffer to create the food I grew (Which is the implication behind "Someone down the line gets screwed, and if they aren't then you're the one getting it." I believe) far from it.

Working with my hands helps me when my work gets tedious and frustrating. I got to spend time gardening with my friends and my wife. This idea that I 'got screwed' because I grew some chard is just silly...

I'm actually starting to be against all suicide protests in general. I'm starting to group hunger strikes, self immolation, and suicide bombings together. While of course I think suicide protests which intend to harm others are objectively worse, no one talks about how many of the Tibetans have been minors, or the emotional manipulation that goes into recruiting them.

All it would take, for instance, is the Dali Lama saying 'if your going to burn yourself to death... don't do so as a minor....' and Tibetan children would stop burning themselves. He knows he has that power over his subjects, and he uses it to do FAR less noble things like haveing Tibetans in exile in India antagonize those who worship Dorje Shugden, even to the point of denying them medical attention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5sOm-uQH9Y

I think most of the time suicide protests are far from noble, and are just another form of social manipulation. I'm of the opinion that it's likely many of the Tibetans are looking for a way to make their suicide 'holy'. I certainly feel they could make greater contributions to the world then just being kindling.

One notable example right now is the hunger strike happening at Guantanamo Bay. I agree with them, and I agree with their right to self determination ESPECIALLY when it comes to not eating to raise awareness of their plight. Although, it's a much different situation when you've been tortured for a decade because you happened to have the wrong brand watch (seriously, look it up) and have been cleared for release for years and are still locked up. At that point stopping eating is the ONLY degree of control they have left over their lives. Why exactly can't these Tibetans figure out more effective ways to use their resolve?

I have a hard time stomaching Tibetan children being assured they will just be reincarnated, and that they will be heroes, and their families will be taken care of etc. They might as well start giving a number value to how many virgins they will get in the after life.

I guess its emotional manipulation techniques are evident here... "How fucked up that the world doesn't care enough about these self immolation protests." I am kinda of the opinion that it's fucked up to expect the whole world to stop just because you kill yourself. It's tragic, no doubt. It makes a compelling photograph, but I think human beings are worth more then just a photo-op. I guess the equation changes if you are certain of your immortality, and think of it as just one of your many lives. I hope for their sake they are correct.

Burning yourself to death obviously isn't changing Chinese policy, and the Dali Lama won't even tell his subjects to stop because he likes the pressure he perceives it puts on Beijing.

All in all I think it's just a sad ineffective technique. To me its growing ineffectiveness doesn't say something bad about humanity, but rather something bad about a culture that continues to encourage people to do so even when it doesn't create meaningful change.

Eventually the shock value fades.

If you think about it, since it's previously been created, it's already the music of the past. :)

I sorta agree.

"The best standup performers have the ability to point out the things we all know but are either afraid to admit or have never realized we knew."

The problem I have is that there are a lot of modern myths. Things like 'the jews built the pyramids in Giza' or 'sugar makes you hyper' or 'you need to drink 8 glasses of water a day.'

People have been found to believe things more when they hear them more often. http://sitemaker.umich.edu/norbert.schwarz/files/lewandowsky...

So I think it's important to point out its factual inaccuracy. More importantly, I think it's fine for him to say it, but also fine for me to point out he's mostly wrong on all accounts.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount performances like this as perpetuating these myths. As some of them he got from entertainers himself. For instance I'm pretty sure if Louis CK thinks hard about where he got the idea that ancient Jews built the pyramids it will look something like this...

Oh, I get it, the only reason I would care about this is because I'm one of the people he said we should let die so we don't have to deal with it anymore. Funny! :)

No, not only do I not have a nut allergy, but I don't even know anyone who does, even in passing. One of my ex-girlfriends had a metal allergy. For instance if she got the wrong kind of metal belt buckle or if the button on her pants was the wrong kind of metal... it would cause a rash, but it was far from fatal.

On that point though, I'm not so convinced as he is that if we stopped worrying about nut allergies they would go away in a generation or two as all the people with nut allergies died. For instance, the medicine used to treat serious nut allergies, EpiPen, Twinject, essentially epinephrine autoinjectors didn't always exist. As a matter of fact for most of human history we didn't even know why exactly anaphylactic shock happened, much less have an emergency treatment for it.

To me this directly points to an obvious reality, it's likely just not treating nut allergies would only succeed in making us horrifying and inhuman, and food allergies would still manifest in the next generation.

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask224

This source seems to establish that sometimes you have identical twins, one with a peanut allergy and one without.... so while it may be hereditary, not everyone who is going to carry the genes will develop the allergy. It might be a simple as one twin getting diaper rash cream made with penut oil as a baby and the other not... or the mother eating penuts while breast feeding... (If that article is to be believed.)

So really I think he's just about wrong for every point of this. Funny as it may actually be, (It got a chuckle out of me as well) it's far from being true or wise.

In fact the only way to truly do what he is talking about might be to screen and kill everyone who carries genes for food allergies, regardless if they have the allergy themselves or not. Die Endlösung der foodenfrage if you will. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution) Straight up horrifying naziish eugenics which is, in every way, objectively worse then worrying about food allergies. (Which still might not even work)

I hope you don't think sugar gets you 'high' like a drug. That was one of the most pervasive myths of the last century, mostly for psychological reasons.... for instance children getting fed ice cream and cake most often in situations like birthday parties and would be 'hyper' because of the social interaction... the sugar consumption was just coincidental.

Though you can see how easy it is to mistake kids getting a lot of energy from social interactions, with the foods commonly served to children at said social interactions....

"Numerous double-blind studies of the Feingold hypothesis have led to the rejection of the idea that this elimination diet has any benefit beyond the normal placebo effect. Although sugar is widely believed by the public to cause hyperactive behavior, this has not been scientifically substantiated. Twelve double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of sugar challenges failed to provide any evidence that sugar ingestion leads to untoward behavior in children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or in normal children. Likewise, none of the studies testing candy or chocolate found any negative effect of these foods on behavior. For children with behavioral problems, diet-oriented treatment does not appear to be appropriate. Rather, clinicians treating these children recommend a multidisciplinary approach. The goal of diet treatment is to ensure a balanced diet with adequate energy and nutrients for optimal growth."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8747098?dopt=Abstract

I think in this article what they are talking about being similar to cocaine is actually the taste sensation itself. (Although I might be wrong on that)

Are there any tools like this for actual font creation? I make fonts by hand, and I'd really like to know if there is anything simular to how this interface works.

He's actually quite wrong about the pyramids being built by slave labor. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

Also Foxconn's suicide rate, even during the workers strikes, was lower then what is typical for China... and is also lower then the suicide rates in all 50 states. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-05-26/tech/30097107... http://www.economist.com/node/16231588

There are multiple points of error in what he uses to establish his assertion here, and this idea that slavery built everything worth building is a house of cards that tumbles once you look at his errant examples.

The man is an entertainer out for a laugh from a crowd, and what he said is riddled with errors and is far from wise or factual. I'm saddened that people think the idea 'slavery built everything worth while' is something people are just afraid to admit, or that they lacked the astute observational skills to realize...

It's something he said for a laugh, and it's far from a enlightened historical perspective. Very far.

Actually it's pretty likely that the pyramids in Giza are around for precisely the opposite reason he's asserting here.

Firstly, there's no evidence that Hebrew slaves built the pyramids. In fact the Biblical 'evidence' for this assertion is massively suspect and unsupported by archaeological evidence. Moses isn't even considered to be a real person anymore, at most he may be an amalgamation of traits from certain leaders well before the time period he is supposed to come from.

Moses, the exodus as described in the bible, and the modern assertion that Jewish slaves built the pyramids are all unsupported by fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus The bible isn't even clear on which Pharaoh was oppressing them, wouldn't that be something that Moses, who was supposedly raised by him would know? Not to mention the entire culture which was supposedly oppressed by that Pharaoh, they wouldn't remember that either?

The idea that slaves built the pyramids actually started with Greek misconceptions upon seeing their enormous size, and that specific claim doesn't even appear in the bible. Sadly, Louis CK's sources for this information boil down to modern myths and soundbites from Charlton Heston. Which would be okay if he didn't present it as fact without looking it up, just look at the comments here already "the ability to point out the things we all know but are either afraid to admit or have never realized we knew."

Actually archaeologists have evidence to support that the people who made the pyramids where payed not only with food and lodging, (Which was considered pay in ancient cultures) but also received a salary. Also it's likely that people who owed taxes could work off their tax debt by working on the pyramids, but also received food and lodging for their work.

Meaning in fact that building the pyramids was a VERY good job in it's day and age. Even now, can you imagine working off a debt for someone who also pays for your food and lodging while you work?

Moses is a myth, and so is the idea the all the greatest things humanity has created has been a product of slavery and suffering. While slavery is a large part of humanities history (and tragically part of our present condition as well), and I appreciate a comedian's performance isn't and shouldn't be bound by accuracy... His ideas here about the building of the pyramids are tragically wrong and could be cleared up with 5-10 minuets reading Wikipedia or a simple google search. (for instance this comes up as the FIRST result for the query "did the jews build the pyramids" http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

The question asked now by archaeologists and historians now isn't how the Egyptians built the Pyramids, but how the pyramids built Egypt. It's likely they got created, and created so quickly, for exactly the OPPOSITE reason he's asserting here.

Think about it this way, North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world. Even the slightest criticism of the Kims leadership gets you and 3 generations of your family sent to labor camps. That's pretty damn indistinguishable from slavery. Yet defense contractors who maintain much smaller populations of employees, paying them well, giving them and their families health insurance, and in general making sure their needs are met... Out perform, by leaps and bounds, the technological advancements made in weapons in North Korea.

Not only is this sloppy writing on his part... (I once read any good author reads 10 sentences for every one they writes.) But it's also frustrating because I know this solidifies this tragic myth in the perception of the public, because it's funny and he's popular and entertaining; while actual historians have to work much harder to tear it down with actual facts and empirical evidence... because they're stodgy and boring.

Wasn't it common for royalty women to pay for sexual encounters with gladiators in Rome?

http://laist.com/2012/04/11/lapd_improving_transgender_relat...

^Considering 'walking while trans' basically used to be a crime in LA until very recently... Latino transgendered women especially. The LAPD would arrest them, just for being a transgendered minority, and subject them to 'strip searches' to 'prove' their gender. That's right, there had to be a set policy to not just arrest women for being transgendered ethnic minorities, and sexually assault and humiliate them. Many of them would be picked up just because they where walking to the grocery store, as if it's unfathomable that transgendered women who are ethnic minorities could be anything other then prostitutes.

Lets not act like the LAPD is any friend to queer people, or ever has been.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/walking%20while%20trans

So, I'm sad to say... it seems things with the LAPD just went down hill from this letter. Hopefully they are getting better, but only because FINALLY someone Queer got put into a position of power. Imagine the minority groups that aren't lucky enough to get a personal advocate.

It's crazy just how deeply propaganda and 'official' cultural narratives permeate into American discourse, even the elements which should know better.

I love how experiences that are common on a variety of psychedelics, which appear to be simular to cave paintings and other very old art... Is framed as evidence of aliens, instead of evidence that humans have been eating naturally occurring psychedelics for millenia.

Given that we've found (if this Erowid source is correct http://www.erowid.org/plants/peyote/peyote_faq.shtml) 7000 year old dried peyote which was intended for consumption. I see no reason to believe that the history of humans and psychedelics doesn't extend back much further.

Taking experiences on psychedelics more seriously then evidence based science is like punishing your spouse because you had dream where they cheated on you... even though they can prove they haven't. It's thinly veiled insanity.

Hybrid. Their combination of symphonic orchestration and EDM I never tire of. Check out Wider Angle first if you haven't heard anything from them.

Yeah, we would have to completely rethink so much that I don't think it's worth it. I mean think about any legal difficulty or ambiguity you can, now add complications like paternity rights for children.

Since me and my wife got married a decade ago, we've had 5 girlfriends and a boyfriend between the two of us. Two of the girlfriends ended up being serious longer relationships... and I still don't think the effort that would go into setting up the legal architecture is worth it.

Frankly long term relationships with more then 2 people rarely happen of their own volition. When they do it can be super intense and really beautiful, but I think most people who are actually in those relationships are willing to accept the reality that legal recognition in the form of marriage isn't likely to happen. We certainly where/are.

Although it would be nice to be able to have more flexibility when immigrating. Marriage gives you tons of added status there, and having a relationship with more then 2 people when your trying to move to another country becomes a big issue.

Usually relationships like this are well worth any trouble we've personally encountered or can envision though. No one says you have to get married to do so. Nothing requires marriage be a part of your romantic relationships in the first place, and in many countries a good lawyer can help making sure non-married partners have most if not all of the rights afforded by the law to married couples.

The idea that it will always play out like that is ridiculous, and has little to do with polyamorous relationships. In order to be in a polyamorous relationship all parties have to know, thus what your talking about is actually just someone using a poor excuse for cheating on what was supposedly a monogamous relationship.

As someone who twice now has thought he had a second wife (relationships my wife and I had with women that each lasted about a year each) I just don't think this is really a huge issue. Mostly because relationships with more then 2 people living together is incredibly hard to maintain, and most people have little interest in doing so. It takes some severely non-jealous people, and most people just don't have the emotional architecture to do it.... as it isn't exactly like there is a guide book for atypical relationships of the sort... far from it.

When me and my wife had our last girlfriend, the one really big issue was immigration. Immigrating together as a married couple would have been easy, but our girlfriend would have had a much more difficult time. It turns out her alcoholism wreaked the relationship (she was not a happy drunk... far from it) before any of that mattered.

We're still looking for another partner... and if we find one I have no problems with getting a lawyer and making sure he/she has as many legal rights that marriage would grant drawn up as possible. I just don't know if society is set up for the logistics of this, and it seems like something that would have more interest from companies/organizations to exploit... then actual romantic relationships.

I feel for people who would like to have their decades long committed relationships involving more then 2 people legally recognized... I REALLY seriously do... but I just think the tiny fraction of humanity that would benefit isn't worth the complete rethinking of legal and judicial presidents that would have to happen first. Otherwise it would just be too easily exploited by people, likely more commonly then anything else.

Anyway. I hate the negativity associated with bigamy in general though. My wife is bisexual and would never feel a relationship with just a guy would satisfy her completely. Tons of modern liberal people think I'm really cool for accepting that, and not being jealous of her having a girlfriend. But be awesome enough to her girlfriends that they want to have a committed long term relationship with me as well... Instantly I'm a bad guy and objectify women or I'm just using them or something of the sort.... it's insanity. Maybe the guy that has a few girls following him around got in that position precisely because he DOESN'T objectify them.... doesn't that make more sense?