noondip

No one is "meant" to be tortured and abused. I find you reply to be morally abhorrent and absolutely disgusting.

Right now, at this very moment, on American highways, there are no less than 5,000 concentration camp trucks. Trucks that we’ve constructed. Inside these trucks there are living, terrified, innocent beings (such as) cows, pigs and chickens. These trucks are being driven to concentration camp slaughterhouses that we’ve carefully constructed all across America. When the trucks arrive, the animals are so frightened they won’t even get off the truck. They’re not stupid. They know what’s next. So people go on the trucks with electric prods and force them to walk down the chutes to their own death. Or if the animals are small enough to manhandle, like chickens, we’ll just grab them off the trucks and toss them inside. Inside, these innocent, living beings are hanged upside down, fully conscious. In other words, they go in alive against their will and come out chopped up into hundreds of pieces. I think this type of behavior is inexcusable and unbecoming of a species that claims to understand right from wrong. The animals have not done one single thing to us to deserve the wrath and the cruelty that we hurl on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt4lweBJTQs

You are depriving yourself of a lot of information by avoiding files based solely on file extension (most academic papers are in PDF format, for example). Avoiding Flash, on the other hand, I completely understand.

Not quite - a 401k could either lower your taxable income now by accepting pre-tax contributions, or offer you tax-free returns on your investment in the case of a Roth. This savings service definitely does neither.

Please read the court document and evaluate PCRM's position on its own merit. Frankly, I find AHA and others' behavior outlined there to be morally abhorrent and worthy of discussion.

I definitely understand your skepticism, but in this case, your doctor may also be poorly informed - see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430660/

It isn't the American Medical Association which I'm referring to, but rather the American Heart Association. From the parent's source:

> The DGAC used the 2013 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) report on lifestyle management to reduce CVD risk for its evaluation of saturated fat intake. The DGAC concurred with the AHA/ACC report that saturated fat intake exceeds current recommendations in the United States and that lower levels of consumption would further reduce the population level risk of CVD.

The cited work is http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/25_suppl_2/S76.long

This page explains it well - http://www.pcrm.org/nbBlog/index.php/new-dietary-guidelines-...

> The report suggested that cholesterol in foods is not a major danger, contrasting with the Institute of Medicine, which found that cholesterol in foods does indeed raise blood cholesterol levels, especially in people whose diets are modest in cholesterol to start with. On this topic, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee did no original research and instead deferred to a 2014 report by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology. However, the American Heart Association receives substantial cash payments for certifying food products, including cholesterol-containing food products as “heart healthy,” creating a financial incentive for discounting the relationship between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol. The Physicians Committee is concerned that exonerating dietary cholesterol will only confuse an already bewildered public. Most people do not differentiate fat from cholesterol, or dietary cholesterol from blood cholesterol. To suggest that cholesterol in foods is not a problem will lead many to imagine that fatty foods or an elevated blood cholesterol level carry no risk—two potentially disastrous notions.

> Accordingly, the Physicians Committee has petitioned the USDA and DHHS to disregard the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s findings on dietary cholesterol. The reliance on the American Heart Association document does not comply with the spirit of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which sets standards for bias among federal advisory committees.

They have filed a lawsuit against the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services:

http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/Physicians-Co...

I highly recommend reading it to understand the sad, corrupted state of affairs I had alluded to.

Faster, but less comprehensive. Many web sites serve content and ads off the same domain. Personally, I like uBlock Origin in combination with uMatrix in the browser, with privoxy and dnsmasq in use system-wide.

Exactly this. Check out http://nutritionfacts.org/ on this topic - there is a load of peer reviewed research for your purveying pleasure.

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell PhD.

Citation, please. Not from someone who sells products, either. A low-carb diet makes no sense, because cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables, for example, are mostly carbs, whereas foods typically associated with high-fat eating (namely: meat, dairy) are proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a major catalyst of various cancers.

Bottom line: the healthiest diets are those that revolve around whole plant foods.

Yes, of course. The World Health Organization and pretty much every other respectable, not-for-profit medical authority in the world recommends fewer than 10% of calories from protein in a healthy diet. Especially limiting animal protein, and preferring plant-based protein, is important for avoiding cancers.

Cholesterol and triglycerides will always drop in the short-term when weight is lost. 3 months is not a long enough time to make a sound judgement about your diet.

With regards to an Atkins-style diet, you need to read the facts on http://atkinsexposed.org/ and not get your information from an organization with a financial incentive to promote unhealthy foods.

Agreed - it would not defend against this presumed watering-hole attack. However, neither would have AV: https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/d1ac55a4e610380f0ab239fcc...

Nevertheless, I still believe Common Sense to be a better alternative to bloated, vulnerable anti-virus programs.

Here's an analysis of the malware - http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2016/03/new-os-x-...

> can anyone recommend a good antivirus for OSX?

Common Sense 2016, see https://github.com/drduh/OS-X-Security-and-Privacy-Guide

The same BitDefender which was hacked a few months ago? http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/39028/cyber-crime/bitdef...

Check out this similar gpg-based password manager, which uses just one encrypted container for improved confidentiality - https://github.com/drduh/pwd.sh

I'm glad you were finally able to realize the distinction between sentient and non-sentient life. Nice talking with you!

The plant-killing argument is extremely trite and appealing to it to justify the animal holocaust just shows you are desperate for any reason to keep engaging in animal abuse. Please - do have the humility to read again and see just how ridiculous your arguments have been. Claiming vegetables are enslaved and killed is just silly and you know it. What's more, I've repeatedly told you more plants are killed for livestock feed, but somehow you choose not to address this apparent contradiction.

Both everything I and you have said can easily be verified with simple Google searches. You are being dishonest if you think more animals are killed by vegans than meat, dairy and egg eaters, or just trying to start a flame war. Either way, I think you've learned some interesting things through our discussion and I hope you'll consider it with less personal bias in the future.

You're making straw man arguments. Humans don't breed, enslave and kill billions of starfish, crickets and worms. Do you see what you're doing? Rather than acknowledge we're harming many animals which are no doubt sentient, you're appealing to fringes to bolster an illogical argument. I'm not surprised - many carnists take refuge in the plant-killing argument as a last resort. It's fascinating what lows the human mind will reach to justify cruelty. And so what if animals kill other animals? Do you really think that's a reason to act the same? Why pick this behavior, and not the one in which animals commit infanticide or sniff each other's rear ends?

> You seem to believe you are superior to plants though

The only one I'm superior to is myself when I still paid for the abuse of animals.

> Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs potato completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what.

This is what Jainists believe and they actually avoid root vegetables for this reason. I'd like to see you make the same argument for fruit, for example. Do you think "killing" a fruit is the same as killing a cow? Do you really think a fruit's life is "ended" when I bite into it? If so, you're just appealing to ridicule and I'm not sure this conversation is worth having.

> i would say methane from cows is less or equally concerning as pesticides

The methane emitted from cattle farming is literally one of the largest contributors to climate change. To say it's less concerning than the use of pesticides shows a deep ignorance of the contradicting evidence, or confusion.

Okay, but it's even more disastrous to animal life to farm animals. Over 150 billion animals are bred and killed on purpose. A billion is a thousand times more than a million, by the way. Using the argument that some animals are inadvertently killed as a byproduct of crop production, especially when the overwhelming majority of those crops are grown for livestock, is just logically fallacious and dishonest.

> under the categorical ethics usually applied to argue for veganism, recognizing plants as sentient would make eating either inexcusable

Veganism is the ethical position that animals should not be exploited for food, clothing and other purposes. If you want to start a Compassion for Carrots organization, be my guest, but please don't form conjecture on others' behalf. You've also not yet provided evidence for plants' sentience, so you haven't actually given reason for considering the abuse of animals to be ethical or acceptable.

There is a very clear and obvious distinction between the plant and animal kingdoms. Any attempts to qualify both as the same when it comes to their destruction is just a coy way to rationalize unethical behavior. Like I said, even if it were true that plants feel pain the same as animals, one would still be compelled to go vegan, since animals "kill" more plants than people do by eating them directly.

> Plants are just as alive as mammals, fish or insects

Two things: plants aren't sentient and animals also eat plants - many, many times more plants than vegans do. So if you truly regard plant and animal life to be the same, it would behoove you to immediately stop eating animals! It's very obvious how this argument falls flat on its face when brought to the light of critical thinking.

> how do you justify your greater reliance than meat eaters on migrant underpaid labor?

This is just conjecture, but I'll try and answer anyway. You can be vegan and care about how workers are treated. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Personally, I grow most of my food myself, but obviously this isn't practical for most people. Why not turn this question around and ask, how are slaughterhouse workers treated and what their experience must be like?

> Isnt this just a game of semantic false moral superiority until there is a nutrition source that is completely death and suffering free?

Pretty ironic to hear this from someone who beliefs him or herself to be superior to animals, and justifies their destruction. It's not a game of semantics - in fact, it's not a game at all. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change. You can be coy all you want, but you are actively contributing to the problem by consuming animal products.

The worldwide premeditated killings of 60 billion land animals in slaughterhouses and 90 billion marine animals in the waterways are diametrically opposed to the accidental tractor-killings in a field. Slaughterhouses intentionally kill animals for meat, dairy and egg-eaters. How many farmers do you know intentionally crushing gophers, mice and snakes with their John Deeres?

The definition of veganism is, a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

It's not about pursuing some ideal in which no one gets hurt. It's also ludicrous to argue that "killing" plants is in any way comparable to killing actual animals. Check out this site, it very accurately and in a straightforward manner discredits all of the arguments you've made against veganism in this thread so far - http://adaptt.org/veganism.html#

It seems to me, you deny objective ethics when it conveniently justifies your behavior. Only a very sad and miserable person must beg for an explanation as to why inflicting suffering is wrong. Perhaps you are yourself trapped in a cycle of fear, apathy and pain, so you don't recognize it in others? I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's quite bizarre when someone outright denies others' will not to be abused. To paraphrase another reply, the arrogance is stinky and quite palpable. I hope you will have the humility to watch the documentary I suggested after all, and perhaps even feel a little ashamed of some of the things you've said in your post.

> I love when big agriculture pays for studies to protect corporate interests.

This appears to be the actual study - https://www.thieme-connect.de/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-0034-1389991 - I don't see any author disclosures of competing or corporate interests?

Low-carbohydrate, high-fat/protein diets are warned against by almost all nutrition and medical authorities of the world. You should have a look at plant-based vegan diets. Many of the benefits of paleo, and none of the baggage of meat. May I also recommend you carb up with sweet, natural sugar from fruit, not resort to using stimulants like coffee!

You've explained the inherent problem I believe to be facing humanity today - apathy and lack of empathy. We can't accept violence if we want to live in a free and peaceful society. All oppression has to eventually fall by the wayside and taking the opportunity to not torture many sentient animals is a good way to help.

> you can recognize that fantasizing about a world that's impossible given human nature is simply a waste of time.

I'm a vegan - I'm not fantasizing, I'm actually living in accordance with my beliefs.