vzidex

I've often felt like I'm somewhere in between worlds - I'm studying at the "top" university in my country, working at a Fortune 500, etc., and on the other hand I know how to use a chainsaw, have done my fair share of home renovation, own a few guns, and hit the range on weekends.

There is pretty much any activity or community that doesn't exist within your sphere. If yours is anything like mine, the people around you play Ultimate Frisbee, rock climb, "hike", do photography, and are "foodies". Pick an activity or community that you don't see represented in your sphere, and that's probably what you're looking for.

As an aside: my girlfriend and close friends have commented that I speak differently when around, e.g., old boomers at the range. You can use whether you feel like you "fit in" as a litmus test, and if you don't fit in, rest assured you will in due time. In my experience, people outside of "meritocratic" (read: finance, tech, law, etc.) bubbles are very kind and welcoming.

I've got the same understanding - I asked my ophthalmologist about it as well because my vision is already quite bad and I'm a computer engineer.

For breaks, she recommended the "20/20/20 rule" - focus your eyes on something at least 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes of screen usage.

Fair enough, I know that even in a city with lots of vegan options I sometimes miss the option of just throwing a pork chop in a pan and serving it with some steamed veggies and rice.

> we buy from nice, little, local farms (and that's expensive)

> but the slaughtering itself has made me appreciate nature way more

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page then :)

> slaughter methods involve less suffering than all of us are likely to experience at our deaths, and likewise less than animals in nature generally experience

Sure, but that says nothing about the suffering these animals experience during their (short [1]) lives, which is typically immense [2] - >=97% of farm animals are raised on factory farms (except for cows, at 78%) [3]. So yes, people should be aware of the facts.

Out of curiosity, why did you shift away from a vegan diet?

[1] https://www.four-paws.us/campaigns-topics/topics/farm-animal...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

[3] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...

I'd agree with you here, these animals already exist and I think it's extremely sad that their lives will have been entirely for waste.

The point of my original comment was that in the vast majority of cases, the way they are being treated right now - i.e. culled with these various methods - is par for the course for the modern animal products industry.

That said, I hope you give your hens a good home, and if you do I applaud you. Despite trying my best to maintain a vegan diet right now, I would love to one day raise (heritage breed, that lay infrequently) hens in my backyard - assuming I have one, as a city-dweller.

> Not all animal slaughter is overly cruel

Sure, but no animal wants to die. No matter how you kill it, you're still harming it.

> there are local farmers that do care about the methods used to slaughter their animals

The problem is that farms like that are exceedingly rare, and I think that their existence is mostly used as a mental cop-out to avoid feeling bad about the animal products one consumes.

By exceedingly rare, I mean that factory farms produce (in the USA) [1]:

* 99.9% of meat chickens

* 97% of egg-laying hens

* 99% of turkeys

* 95% of pigs

* 78% of cattle

I've also make a bunch of points relating to the natural lifespans of animals, the issues with modern breeds, and whitewashing of animal farming practices in my other comment [2]. If animals were to be raised for their products (meat, eggs, dairy, wool) in ways that do not contribute any excess cruelty to their lives - i.e. letting them live out most of their natural lives, giving them space, good food, loving care, and not raising modern breeds that suffer from their over-engineering - I would expect said products to cost an order of magnitude more than what you typically find at the grocery store these days. Odds are your "free-range" eggs that cost 30% more than the cheapest ones aren't it.

If you want to consume animal products, go ahead. But, face the consequences of your diet, and acknowledge what you are paying others to do - without imagining the magical "cruelty-free" farm. That was the point of my post: that while in theory you can have wonderful farms with happy animals, in practice they don't exist.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23237599

Thank you for your thorough and thoughtful response. I'd agree with you that I'd be OK with meat consumption if the animals being raised for meat were raised under "optimal" conditions for their happiness, and only slaughtered at the end of long, fulfilling lives.

What burst my bubble on that idea, however, and really gave me the urge to strive towards a vegan diet, was just how completely implausible that image is. Even if your meat comes from "ethical" sources, I have three big issues:

1. Animals are typically slaughtered far short of their natural lifespans. Cows, pigs, and chickens have natural lifespans of 20, 20, and 10 years, and live 3, 2, and 0.2 years under factory farming conditions [1]. Even if the meat you're consuming comes from animals that live fantastic lives - the stereotypical image of open pastures, a "natural" diet, loving care from the farmer - those lives are almost definitely being cut short for the sake of profitability.

2. The animal products industry puts a humongous amount of effort into keeping consumers from thinking about the origins of their food. Part of this effort is whitewashing the process as much as possible. I don't feel like finding specific examples off the top of my head, but it's cases like "cage free chicken" meaning that the birds are kept in a massive, communal shed with 24/7 artificial lighting, very little cleaning, veterinary care, etc. It's very possible that even if the meat you're buying is labelled with "humane" and "ethical" terms like free-range, cage-free, etc. that those terms mean very different things than you might assume.

3. Modern livestock are bred to produce the maximum amount of product (meat, milk, eggs, wool) as possible. This leads to chickens whose legs collapse underneath them from their weight after a few months of life, cows which have chronically infected udders from the quantity of milk they produce, etc. Even if you take these breeds and raise them under "humane" conditions, they'll still have miserable lives without extensive veterinary care.

That all said, if you do indeed source your meat from sources that you have verified give their animals fantastic comfortable lives, let them live (most) of their natural lifespan before slaughter, and only raise heritage breeds that don't suffer just from being alive, then I'm all for your meat consumption - and very curious how much your meat costs!

[1] https://www.four-paws.us/campaigns-topics/topics/farm-animal...

I would disagree with that point of view, I see no respect for the animals in a modern factory farming process - which produces the vast majority of animal products consumed in the Western world (see the documentary I linked in my original comment).

I disagree, Pascal's Wager deals with the situation where you don't know whether the (omnipotent) entity you're trying to please exists or not.

This comment thread assumes the omnipotent entity (aliens) exists, and so you'd be taking a coin flip as to what behaviour they find pleasing. Pascal's Wager resolves to:

(infinite gain * non-zero probability of success) > (finite gain * non-zero probability of failure)

While this situation is more like:

(infinite gain * non-zero probability of success) ~= (infinite gain * non-zero probability of failure).

Yes, but only because we (humans) wiped out the natural predators of many wild animals - the typical example being wolves and deer in North America.

We then do indeed kill wild animals so that their populations don't explode due to a lack of predators - in Canada and the US you typically need a "tag" to hunt wild animals, basically a ticket that allows you to kill X number of a specific species.

These tags are distributed in limited numbers, and extensive work goes into surveying populations of wild animals to distribute the right number of tags. Proceeds from selling tags go to conservation efforts, including the surveying efforts previously mentioned.

As someone trying their hardest to follow a vegan diet, I fully support hunting wild animals for food and population control. However, that situation is worlds removed from animals that are bred for the sole purpose of being raised and slaughtered in factory farms.

EDIT: to rip off another comment in this chain - the issue of hunting wild animals is orthogonal to the issue of factory farming. i.e., the two issues have little to do with each other and you cannot/should not use one as moral justification for the other.

I'm guessing they mean that the population of livestock is orders of magnitude greater than the population of wild (mammals and birds) animals on this planet. I forget the exact figures and am lazy to Google them, but I remember that cows, pigs, and chickens far outnumber even the population of people on this planet.

Thank you. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm not successful in following a 100% vegan diet myself.

I still get fried chicken with my significant other (who follows a normal Western diet) sometimes, as a guilty comfort food when I'm struggling mentally or especially stressed.

I still eat mayonnaise and margarine when I'm visiting my parents, because I don't want to hassle them to buy the vegan variants just for me, and I decide that I am willing to use those products occasionally, knowing the suffering that went into them.

Very few people are 100% perfect in following their chosen diet - vegan, vegetarian, keto, weight-loss, etc. The important part is to try your best, and bear in mind the consequences of what you're consuming.

To anyone reading this thread and thinking "The horror!":

Being culled through these various methods is no better or worse than they would have experienced under "normal" conditions - i.e. being raised until they are fit for slaughter and sale. No animal wants to die, and the methods used to kill them when being sold are just as cruel as the "culling" techniques listed here [1].

If you don't like what you're reading in this article, go vegan. Otherwise, you're paying for other people to inflict this sort of suffering on animals.

[1] Dominion (2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

They used to be, that's how they got started. I remember watching their videos in the early 2010s on drugs - including one where the host of the video flew to the Czech Republic to do heroin there.

Now? Yeah, I wouldn't call them counter-cultural anymore.

Yes, we're thinking of the same website.

I've been around on 4chan long enough to know that "troll" most often is equivalent to what the site really feels, or at least some of the people on there. The "troll" or "satire" label is only there to try to evoke plausible deniability - as in the case of "for legal purposes my call for violence against this person is a joke".

i.e. the sorts of people - in general - who browse the more unsavory parts of 4chan/8chan/etc are very fond of their dogwhistles.

That's what you'd hope for, but in practice that's not what I'm seeing. The anger I see online is directed at politicians in some cases - but usually for said politicians supporting social programs, pro-immigration policies, and anti-gun policies.

In the rest of cases, anger is indeed directed at LGBTQ+ people - especially towards trans people - people of color - especially blacks, and increasingly Asians - and women - especially those who are viewed as "promiscuous".

Anecdotally, I see it in lots of places - I was a part of those types of communities when I was younger (I'm better now, and I _think_ I'm reasonably well-adjusted), but I still keep tabs on those corners of the internet so I know what's going on, and can be prepared if/when they bubble over in a meaningful way.

I see lots of hateful activity, from "boogaloo" groups that hide their violence fetish behind euphemisms and jokes about revolution, to "satirical" posts about the value of white identity and culture over other cultures and races.

The other day I came across a website whose purpose was to collect the full names and photographs of (white) women who date outside their race - specifically, women who date black men - and the (white) men who date women like that. Said site has a section dedicated to women who were hurt or killed by their partners, and labels those women those who "paid their toll" for dating outside their race.

I haven't seen any meaningful action by any of these groups except that website I mentioned, but the activity is there if you care to find it. It's something that worries me, specifically for my partner - who is a woman of colour.

We know already where it heads - to young men being radicalized to hate everyone who isn't like them (i.e. not young, male, angry, usually white, usually straight).

The GP already replied, but I wanted to also make the point that it's possible they live somewhere where active heating and cooling are rarely used.

The funniest case will be if governments don't even have to step in - I've read cases of AirBNB hosts being extremely overleveraged in their "investment" properties. With some luck, they'll be forced to sell or convert to long-term rentals (which are _very_ strongly protected where I live) to avoid defaulting on the cheap debt they gorged on.

Hosts definitely are pulling properties already - based off stories I've heard/read, many AirBNB hosts were/are overleveraged on their properties and have had to sell or convert to long-term now that their income has dried up, to avoid defaulting.

Further anecdotally, I've been closely following the rental market in my city because I'm looking for a long-term place for August. There's been a noticeable drop in prices, and _huge_ quantities of listings in buildings that were notorious for being "AirBNB hotels". Furthermore, lots of listings are obviously ex-AirBNB units - tells include being only available furnished, only available for ~4 month rentals, descriptions that include "Perfect for your next stay!" or words to that effect, and my favourite: hotel-style "No smoking" cards caught in the listing photos.

Having used a '15 (I think) 13" Pro for two internships, I actually found it met my needs really well. I personally can't stand any 14"+ laptop, so the 13" Pro hit a great spot for me of being:

* Svelte enough to watch Netflix in bed with or throw in my bag to take on a commute

* Powerful enough that I never had major performance issues when plugged in at my desk at work, driving an external monitor

I look back on that machine and those internships fondly, and I could see myself going for a 13" MBP (or 14", if they ever release it) when I next need to upgrade my laptop - after I finish undergrad :)

I disagree with you, however one aspect of the continental European model that I admire is the close integration between post-secondary education and industry. One of my cousins - who studied and now lives in Germany - did his Masters and PhD on the topic of work he was doing while working at <large car manufacturer>, where he still works today.

On the other hand, from my understanding such close integration between advanced degrees and industry is less common in North America - to my disappointment.

I think it depends on what you're doing. If you want to be an artist or a writer, maybe community college would be a better deal.

On the other hand, if you want to be an engineer then it's pretty important to go to a reputable institution - at least in the field I work in.

I recently saw Groundhog Day for the first time and loved it! Definitely a good example of ennui (at least until the end of the film).

21-year-old here, I do that pretty often. Most days when I wake up I feel super groggy and/or have very little motivation to get out of bed, so mindlessly scrolling Reddit/Facebook or reading the news gives me a slow start to gather some energy to get out of bed.

However, recently I _have_ been wondering whether being on my phone all the time contributes to those symptoms.

I've always wondered what the learning outcomes were like for homeschooled kids vs. those that attended school (public or private). My assumption has been that homeschooling is less successful than sending the kids to school.

I'm saying that the interview linked to is an interview of a person who is the main writer for a site [1] that doesn't pass the fake news smell test. Therefore, if you want us to believe the material she presents in the interview, find a better source for said material.

[1] https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/last-american-vagabo...

> I don't think humans are made for vegan diets

I've been vegan for around 6 months now, and haven't dropped dead yet. If anything, I feel the same as I did before - on a vegetarian diet - and before that - on the standard Western diet.

As long as you eat a balanced diet with enough protein, fat, and carbs humans can thrive on a vegan diet just fine.