Well, first, soy is not a good example, because soy is a complete protein. Indeed you could replace the crop entirely with soy to yield a greater amount of protein. The only problem with soy is that it may have health complications, the research isn't clear.
Second, you're assuming the two crops would contain no amino acid overlap. This is most likely not the case. A more real world example would look something like this:
Crop A:
100% Amino Acid 1
30% Amino Acid 2
Crop B:
30% Amino Acid 1
100% Amino Acid 2
So you could end up with a greater than 50% protein yield by combining crops. You'd have to know the exact amino acid quantities of each possible crop to come up with an optimal combination.
Third, the crops would have additional health benefits aside from just the protein: high fiber, low fat, vitamins, etc.
Fourth... ok, I'll stop now.
/facepalm
No, it's not remotely that simple.
If you look at the full report there is a clusterfuck of pluses and minuses relating to the raising and consumption of meat. It's not at all clear what the best answer is.
Among the issues: ruminants like cows are less widely used than chickens because chickens are much more economically efficient.
Also, land used for feed could be used for crops better suited to humans. The protein yield would be higher and amino acids more diverse.
I'm still waiting for that citation about grass and cows, btw.
I would like to see a citation to verify that. How much grass does a cow require? How much free grass do we currently have? Are grass fed cows as economically viable as grain fed cows? Are they as nutritionally adequate?
Here's the most comprehensive report on the issue of livestock that I know of:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/
There is way more information in there than I'm capable of digesting in one sitting, probably even in ten sittings, but I did find this snippet:
"In fact, livestock consume 77 million tonnes of protein contained in feedstuff that could potentially be used for human nutrition, whereas only 58 million tonnes of proten are contained in food products that livestock supply. This is a result of the recent trend towards more concentrate-based diets for pigs and poultry, with nutritional requirements more similar to humans than ruminants."
You do realize that animals use up more resources than plants, right? Your first two paragraphs make an excellent argument against eating meat because "having a bunch of cows on a farm" is much less resource efficient than growing soy or what have you on that same farm. Cows don't live on air, you know.
As for getting milk from cows on a farm, I disagree with you that they would need to be "trapped in a box." Providing humane conditions may raise the price of milk a bit, but not prohibitively so. Also, because they aren't "cycled" nearly as quickly as animals which are bred to be used as meat, much less suffering occurs, and it is thus a big step up from killing them for meat.
Animals kill each other because they lack the mental capacity to do anything else. We as humans are capable of choosing not to cause pain.
Animals could never compete with us for resources. We've got guns. If a vegetarian had to make a choice between a human dying and an animal dying they would kill the animal. (Well, maybe some fringe lunatics wouldn't, but the vast majority would...)
Practically all of the meat that we eat comes from animals that we breed. Hunting is something done mainly for recreation and is outside the scope of vegetarianism.
1) Combining multiple plant foods gives you the full range of amino acids. You should be eating a variety of plant foods anyway.
2) Dairy products contain complete proteins.
3) Protein powder works too.
There are no negative consequences at all to excluding meat from your diet. In fact, studies have shown forgoing meat makes you less likely to die from a heart attack:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/
"We... compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar lifestyles... In conclusion, vegetarians had a 24% lower mortality from ischemic heart disease than nonvegetarians, but no associations of a vegetarian diet with other major causes of death were established."
http://www.eatright.
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."
Yeah, I think this is definitely true.
There are still some problems though -- it's too easy to manipulate the system. If you could somehow ensure that one person could only have one account, that would be a big step forward. Maybe tying an account to a social security number would work...
I think it's only a matter of time until we get the kinks worked out. In fifty years we'll be passing legislation through some much improved, open source version of CreateDebate.
Actually they're not banning anything religious. They're just not allowing any new purely evangelical shows to be added. It's obviously the right thing to do. Tax dollars going toward the promotion of a religion violates the separation of church and state. I don't see why you would be supporting such a thing.
Your money is going to them because they are a public good and thus suffer from market failure due to the free-rider problem. In other words, supply isn't keeping up with demand because donations are insufficient.
On a side note, PBS is consistently rated the most unbiased news on U.S. television.
Also, when you divide the amount of government funding by the number of taxpayers, you're only paying one or two dollars a year.
The FCC is important for national security. For example, the government can take over the airwaves in the event of an emergency. Also, somebody has to coordinate frequency allocations so broadcasters aren't stepping on each other. Both of these create the possibility for government meddling in the media, yet both serve as good examples for why the benefits can outweigh the risks.
1. There's absolutely no reason why we can't put in some instant cut off clause if you're worried about that. You should think more productively, asking "How can we make it work?" rather than just saying, "It'll never work."
2. So you're acknowledging that for-profit news has problems, but at the same time saying they do good as a side effect. Looking at their regular news, they seem to be heavily biased toward "Threat! Danger! Fear!", but the same gos for all for-profit news. Fear = ratings. I will admit that some bits of real news do make it through though.
Still, there's no reason why public broadcasting can't operate alongside them. Where on Fox News (or all of cable news for that matter), can you find as in depth coverage as PBS' Frontline? You can't, because that's not where the easy money is. On PBS you get it for free, online, with no commercials.
1. What's your point? People can become apathetic to anything. People can become apathetic to corrupt for-profit news. The bottom line is if people decide the news agency is bogus, they can vote to cut funding.
2. Let's look at the top video on foxnews.com right now. It's got Bill O'Reilly and Barney Frank arguing about... some nonsense. Some sound bites about terrorist photos, some sound bites about gay marriage, and a bunch of he said, she said bla bla bla. There's no serious attempt to inform anybody about anything going on here. It's just verbal fighting, the modern day version of the Roman Colosseum. It's no wonder people watch it; people have always been attracted to that sort of thing.
By saying "MSNBC bashes conservatives" and "CNN has reporters give opinions" then you agree with me that there is a problem with the idea of news for profit. They're trying to cater to a specific audience in order to make money. They're sacrificing integrity for ratings.
Well, the bastard inside me wants to argue that factory farming is inextricably bound to the modern concept of meat, so it is impossible to discuss one without the other.
But instead, I'll take a more conciliatory approach and acknowledge that yes, I have nudged this debate along a slightly different trajectory than the one you originally intended. But the issue of factory farming is very closely related, and at the same time much more important. I'm taking a pragmatic approach to improving the lives of animals. "Are hardcore vegans right" wouldn't have made for a very interesting debate anyway, as you can tell by the fact that this debate had fallen off the charts before I kicked the hornet's nest with my initial argument.
I clearly stated my position in the first argument I posted to this debate, which you can currently read there in the top-left. It can be succinctly stated as, "Meat, as we currently obtain it, is morally unacceptable." I have never wavered in this position, and I don't understand why you think I have. I can only guess you're imposing invalid assumptions on my arguments.
No, I don't fully agree with believe, but our views have a lot of overlap. You could say we've formed a coalition for the better treatment of animals.
I could say the same sort of thing about you. There are many people on your side of the debate saying, "Who gives a shit? It doesn't matter what we do to animals, they're just animals. Nature should go unquestioned. Vegetarians are stupid and unhealthy." If you really want to improve the conditions in which animals are treated, why are you on the side of these people? Or does it frustrate you that I'm lumping you in with the extremists?
You'd have to grow fruits and vegetables one way or another, because man cannot live on meat alone.
Are you seriously comparing buying from a farmer to exploiting animals in factory farms? We humans have this concept known as an "economy", in which "money" is exchanged for "goods and services". Frankly, I'm surprised you've never heard of it.
I could see something like that working...
Pick 100 random people, with basic filtering (people must have graduated high school, no serious criminal record, etc.). Give them all the same campaign funds; disallow fund-raising of any kind. They campaign for a while and then we vote for one of them, possibly via a tournament style voting scheme.
...Actually that sounds like a pretty good idea.
Your argument doesn't make sense because the vast majority of the animals we kill are bred in factory farms. Understand? We're not talking nature here. We're creating them, subjecting them to a life of suffering, and then killing them. Can't you see that this is wrong?
"how do we know that there is no possible bias?"
Independent watchdogs. Voting to cancel funding. There is still potential for bias, but there is much less than in for-profit news.
"Greed takes away the want for ideological bias."
Buuuullshit. Greed creates an incentive to tell people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. Soundbites and vitriol = high ratings = advertising $$$ = misled public = failure of Democracy.
The free press has worked pretty well, but only because they have resisted greed, not because of it. Fox is showing news agencies that ideological shilling is the way to profit.
You're an idiot.
Stop spewing bullshit. It's bad for America and it's bad for the world.
Well we can set it up in a way that recognizes the threats of government influence and works to minimize them.
The BBC is essentially an independent, non-profit corporation. There are only three connections to the government: 1) The appointment of the BBCs governors, 2) The law which directs a certain amount of tax revenue be sent to the company, and 3) The government can prohibit a program from being aired. They have no power to alter stories.
These powers are all ultimately checked by the voters. If they see that power is being abused they will become unhappy and will vote against the abuser.
And if you think this is not good enough, we could further limit government influence. Our version of the BBC could strip powers 1 and 3, so that the only connection to the government is the funding. I think we can agree this would keep government influence down to nearly zero.
I have been thinking about this, because it's clearly important. Obviously a totalatarian government is a horrible thing that we must constantly stand vigilant against.
But your argument is like saying we shouldn't use chainsaws because they make it easier to cut off your arm. Say we have a tree that needs to get cut down. As long as we use it like responsible adults, taking proper measures to ensure safety, there is no reason not to use a chainsaw.
The fact is that government is a powerful tool that can be used to greatly enhance the quality of life for all of us. Yes, it can be dangerous, but so long as we have checks and balances, and fair elections, we should use it to improve our lives.
Also, on a side note, the British have been running the BBC for almost a hundred years now without turning into a fascist dictatorship. People seem pretty pleased with it actually.
I ran across this article which explains the economic concept of public goods. The second half of the article is a very interesting case study focusing on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
My understanding is that everybody pays a small licensing fee through taxes and in return gets radio, television, and online news completely free of advertisements. Public funding also frees the company from having to turn a profit which in turn allows them to be more impartial.
This sounds like a very good idea to me. With American media becoming more and more about high ratings, often at the expense of journalistic integrity, I think this is going to become a more and more attractive option.
True, only humans are capable of recognizing evil. But that doesn't make it less real.
True, our primitive impulses push us to behave in a brutish manner. But we can also choose to overcome our base urges; see Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ, etc.
First, combining multiple non-meat products gives you the full range of amino acids. You should be eating a range of foods anyway.
Second, dairy products contain complete proteins.
Third, protein powder, which I have mentioned a couple of times already, is another attractive option.
Your point about only eating vegetables is irrelevant because vegetables are not the only non-meat product that exists.
There are bad consequences to excluding fruits and vegetables from your diet because they contain vitamins and fiber. There are no negative consequences at all from excluding meat. In fact, studies have shown forgoing meat makes you less likely to die from a heart attack:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/
"We... compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar lifestyles... In conclusion, vegetarians had a 24% lower mortality from ischemic heart disease than nonvegetarians, but no associations of a vegetarian diet with other major causes of death were established."
http://www.eatright.
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."
Indeed. Outside the sanctuary of society human life is nasty, brutish, and short. Though in some circumstances evil may be justified, those actions are still evil. I suppose you could say we have a moral obligation to build a society which allows us to transcend our primitive state of being.
I will ignore your tangent about playgrounds and job applications because it is irrelevant to this debate.
Actually, the humane treatment of animals is exactly what I've been advocating. It seems you have been reading into my arguments something that isn't there. I also think this position is the one endorsed by the majority of animal rights activists. Perhaps you're looking at the extreme fringe and assuming it represents the majority.
Survival is by far the most important justification for eating meat. Take that away and what do you have left? It tastes good? Is that really enough of a reason?
And, no, taking away a choice is not fascism. We have many laws which inhibit choice. Murder, for example, is illegal. The question is simply whether those laws are justified.
Actually, rape occurs among animals as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
But that's not the point. The point is that just because we have evolved the capability to do something doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.
Sorry for the rudeness. It just gets frustrating hearing the same lame arguments over and over.
I agree with you. If we treated animals humanely, eating meat would be fine. However, we do not treat animals well, and we do not kill them humanely. See: http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/
Well, technically, you Californians do (or at least you will in 2015), but the rest of us are not so enlightened.
I think you have misunderstood me. I think killing animals is wrong because it causes pain. I think killing humans is wrong regardless.
And modern day slaughterhouses are a grotesque abomination. See: http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/
Some aspects of morality are fickle, others are strongly grounded in fundamental principles. If I had to kill to eat, I would. I would be committing evil, but that evil would be justified.
Just because we've been doing it for a long time doesn't make it right. This is basically just saying, "it's natural," like everybody else on this side of the debate.
Protein powder is better than meat. It's cheaper, has no fat, and is designed to be more easily absorbed by your body. And it doesn't require the killing of animals.
Ah, but medical equipment costs money, there are more sick people than there are doctors, and there are only so many hours in the day. Saving a life uses resources that could go toward other causes such as medical research -- research that could end up saving many lives. This is why we need to draw a line at some point and say saving this particular life is not worth the cost.
Protein powder is better than meat. It's cheaper, has no fat, and is designed to be more easily absorbed by your body. And it doesn't require the killing of animals.
Killing an animal destroys just as much life as killing a plant? By that logic killing a human destroys just as much life as killing a plant. Again you're failing to distinguish between biological life and sentient life.
So you don't care if an organism can think? Why is killing wrong again?
In the abortion debate you said, "We do the right thing because we don't want to cause pain."
Well, plants can't feel pain. Animals can.
So computing his total life income would indicate how much his life is worth? That sounds kind of reasonable, actually.
As for Oprah, that's a funny answer, but you know what I'm trying to get at: How do we decide when the cost of saving a life is too great?
Tagging an elephant would be slightly wrong. But the badness of the pain would likely be outweighed by the goodness of the resultant scientific progress.
If we all believed that murder of humans was ok, we would have people killing each other left and right. The moment any authority figure tries to force someone to do something they don't want to do, there would be blood.
Pain is bad because we experience it that way (for the most part). We experience it as a bad thing because evolution has made us that way. Removing the pain takes the badness out of killing an animal because the animal experiences no negative emotions. It wouldn't make the act of killing good, it would make it neutral.
When I said predators, I was referring to your example of cheetahs killing their prey. If a cheetah kills a gazelle it is not behaving immorally because a cheetah is incapable of moral reasoning.
However if an animal with sufficient intelligence, such as a human, kills another animal knowing that it's wrong, then yes they are committing evil. If we can't kill animals painlessly, and can easily make do without killing them, then yes we have a moral obligation not to kill animals.
In other words, "it's natural."
Lame.
It's wrong to kill humans, even painlessly, because if we don't condemn murder then we will not be able to function as a society.
This same logic does not apply to animals, because we will still be able to function as a society even if we do massacre animals.
However there is a second aspect of morality at work here: Pain is bad and it should therefore be minimized.
Predators are not behaving immorally because they lack the intellectual capacity for morals.
Yes this is a weird question and one that is hard to answer. But I think addressing it could yield important insights into many things.
I think I would be willing to pay at least $500. Any higher than that and I find myself having to stop and think about it.
Similarly I would probably not be willing to pay $50,000, as that would mean wiping out an entire years salary and eating into my savings.
I think, in these circumstances, the line for me would be somewhere around $10,000.
I wouldn't call it "murder", but I do believe that anything which causes undesired pain to a sentient being is wrong.
Killing an animal painlessly would be morally acceptable. But we don't kill them painlessly. In fact, due to the atrocious conditions maintained in the factory farming industry, the entire lives of millions of sentient beings are filled with suffering.
And everybody who says "oh, but it's natural" just has their head up their ass. Natural does not mean morally acceptable. Rape is natural -- doesn't make it ok. Why don't people get that?
Ok, so suffering is meta-physical, meaning it is a phenomenon that emerges from simpler pysical phenomena. I'm with you there.
I'm still not clear on what you mean in your second paragraph. Greed and anger are natural, because they are evolved traits. Certain stimuli cause certain neurons to fire which result in various emotions. The "wiring" that forms these emotions has been shaped via evolution.
Yes, you have aptly summarized my example. I hit my head, I feel pain. I have gained a small piece of knowledge about the world. I drop a penny, it see it falls to the floor. More empirical knowledge. From this basis we create the scientific method and systematically learn much of what there is to know. Pain is experienced via neurons. Falling is caused by gravity.
If we drop a penny and it does not fall, then that would mean the theory of gravity is incomplete. It would be cause for a scientific revolution. Through careful study we could fill in the missing pieces.
Saying that competition is part of our nature does not in any way say that it ought to be that way. Indeed we can use higher parts of our brain to override our more basic desires.
And yes, "direct and clear" means "there's a smaller chance of error." A practically zero chance of error, in fact.
So when Buddhists talk about "suffering" they are really talking about a specific form of suffering -- unsatisfied desire. Well, first, this is by no means the only thing that causes negative feelings and I don't see why Buddhists give this particular form of suffering special status. Also I would say that unsatisfied desire is not very bad at all, in the big scheme of things. It gives us something to work toward. If nobody strove to achieve greater things we would all still be hunter-gatherers with a very low quality of life.
Looking at Wikipedia, I see that the word "metaphysical" encompasses an incredibly wide range of ideas. Indeed it seems to include everything that's not science. I don't understand how you think suffering fits into those ideas. Care to be more specific?
"it is the theory that built the ground-works for those feeling as you feel them on your skin"
I don't understand this.
"a man does not have any access to his nature"
What? If I bang my head against the wall I quickly realize something about my nature: that I should not bang my head against the wall.
"Prove evolution had nothing to with cigarettes and that cigarettes have nothing to do with evolution."
A butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong can contribute to a tidal wave hitting California. I think that evolution is probably related to cigarettes in some complex way. But the connection between evolution and competition is much more direct and clear.
"Where would seek the connection in hopes of not finding any? Within your Mindset or Wikipedia?"
Wikipedia would be a good start. I don't understand what you mean by "Mindset."
"pain doesn't automatically produce suffering... Loneliness is not automatically translated as suffering... some people are glad to be enslaved..."
So if pain, isolation, and enslavement are not suffering, then what the hell is?
Wikipedia says suffering is synonymous with pain.
Metaphysical? I'm no philosopher, but that word sounds suspiciously close to "supernatural", which in turn sounds suspiciously close to "bullshit."
Evolution has given us a genetic predisposition to compete. This disposition is manifested through basic emotions such as anger and greed. This is what I mean when I say something is in our nature. Evolution doesn't predispose us toward as specific an activity as smoking cigarettes, so that comparison is invalid.
True, we can choose not to harm others, but this usually results in exploitation by those who are willing to harm others.
Competition does not itself cause harm, but it frequently results in harm being done, both through the conflict itself (e.g. war) and through the resultant deprivation for the loser.
I disagree with Noble Truth #3. True suffering comes from physical or emotional pain. A broken arm, loneliness or enslavement are all potential sources of suffering. This suffering can never be eliminated because it is an integral part of what makes us human.
I agree with the Eightfold Path except for the part about not causing harm. It is human nature to compete and competition by definition must cause some degree of harm to the losers.
The quote is saying that capitalists work together to steal money from the people. In this case, "fleece" means "to steal from through trickery".
I got the quote from here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/
It's the second one.
I don't think poverty can be prevented either. I just want to mitigate it.
Yes, of course we should encourage kids to work hard and save money. What does that have to do with anything?
"But if we can convince people that profit is wrong..."
Wait, what? Profit is not wrong -- it's good. Profit means value has been created. The problem is that sometimes the costs of obtaining profits are too great. For example, oil companies compete with one another to provide high quality fuel at low prices. This fuel is in turn used to power cars, factories, etc. We pay oil companies in return for this service and they get profits. Everybody wins. The only problem is that we can have side effects like global warming. It's not in the oil companies best interest to prevent global warming because anything they do to prevent it will cut into their profits. This is where government must step in. It's not profit itself that's the problem -- the problem is ignoring the costs associated with obtaining that profit.
"...maybe we can convince them that generosity is good."
I just don't think this is realistic. Let's pretend we have no taxes and just strongly encourage people to be generous. I'd bet a million dollars that we would be hearing the exact same arguments, "Why should I give money to a bunch of people that are too lazy to work hard?", "I deserve to be rewarded for the goods I have produced.", etc, etc.
I ignored the rest of what you said because I thought it was getting away from the central issue in this debate. But if you insist...
Yes, I think it is fair to say Hollywood exaggerates the greed of corporations and glorifies the role of the little guy.
I think we should obey the vast majority of laws. The only exceptions are when a law is obviously bogus. Smoking weed is a close call, but I'd put it in the category of laws that are ok to break.
Science is not at all like religion. It is founded on the simple, obvious idea that we can gain knowledge through observation. Religion has no such foundation.
Nobody knows why we're here. Saying we're here because God put us here is just giving an easy answer to a question that can't be answered.
Science doesn't consider human emotion? What do you mean? Science allows us to study and understand emotions.
"Capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people..."
Now there's an actual Lincoln quote (oh snap). :)
I'm glad we agree that government should keep corporations in check.
Do you know what the phrase "necessary evil" means? In the case of income taxes, we commit the minor evil of stealing a little from everybody in order to prevent the greater evil of people being unable to support their families.
I would be willing to give to charity instead of paying taxes. But I know for a fact that many people are not as generous as me. Apparently you disagree and think that everybody in the country will happily fork over their cash. I'm sorry but there's no other word for that but naivete.
Each community is like a whole separate web site. You can't easily move from one to the other.
I think you may be confused by the logo. Both the cat and the CreateDebate logo are part of the same image, and clicking that image takes you to the serious business front page.
I've never dealt with this personally. The closest I've come is when one of my classmates in high school killed himself. I am really unsure what to say, but I'll leave some thoughts...
Some people say nobody's to blame. This may be cold of me, but I tend to think everybody's to blame. The individual who was selfish enough to disregard the pain their death would cause to their loved ones. The person's family and friends who failed to recognize and address whatever was hurting the person. Society as a whole for allowing people to be in a position where they see no hope for the future. I guess you can only really judge on a case by case basis.
All we can do is live and learn, and take any signs of suicidal feelings seriously.
Gah, Jake. You think greedy exploitive people mainly exist in the movies? What kind of fairy land do you live in?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Don't worry about bad people? What kind of bs is that? What kind of person turns a blind eye to injustice?
Give me some source for your mythical welfare bogeyman. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/
And how many times do I have to tell you that everyone in America is not going to willingly give up 20 to 30 percent of their income to the common good. It's just not going to happen. And that's what it takes to fund social security and medicaid.
Ug, what a slog. In the future I'd appreciate it if you could keep your arguments in the hundred word range. There are only so many hours in the day after all. Plus, spending too much time on your arguments will lead to burnout. I've seen happen. Now then...
We would be better off without medicade? Wtf? So what if you can't afford medical care? Just suck it up?
Welfare is not intended to eliminate poverty. Some forms of welfare can indeed lessen poverty by providing opportunities to those who would not have had one. Other forms are intended to mitigate the suffering of those who cannot help themselves. I'm sorry but I am not going to leave people to die in the street.
Yes I am greedy. Greed and benevolence are both parts of human nature. I am not anti-capitalist. But I see that there are other concerns alongside optimizing productivity. Demanding a minimum quality of life, which can be provided at a modest price, is the moral thing to do. I understand the problems of government inefficiency, but I can see no other way to procure the necessary funds other than a progressive income tax.
Seriously? Don't you see how selfish behavior can reward one person while hurting everyone else? There are people out there who are willing to sacrifice all common decency in order to make as much money as they can. They will exploit the rest of us to further their own ends if government doesn't keep them in check.
No, some people will always need charity. The very old, the very young, the disabled -- people who can't work are the only ones who get government handouts. Are you seriously going to tell some old lady that she needs to suck it up and start pulling her weight?
Lol, thanks for pointing that out.
Source: http://www.cincinnatiskeptics.
"I have not "derided another's love as unworthy" as you claim."
Yes you have, all who campaign against gay marriage are essentially making that statement.
"this does not necessarily reflect ones personal views but is an exercize in public debate methods"
Well if you're just playing Devil's advocate, then I apologize for calling you a gay-basher.
But consider the effects of your words: Neocon sheep are liable to skim through your argument, nodding their heads without understanding, thinking that there is some kind of rational justification for their hateful beliefs. We can't have that.
Oh, and you seem to have overlooked the last paragraph in my previous argument. No ad-hominem there.
That's because it's just not true. :p Like they say, "people who have agreed to organ donation are given more tests to determine that they are truly dead than are those who haven't agreed to organ donation." What more do you want?
It seems to me you're arguing from a pseudo mystical standpoint that goes against the scientific evidence. How could consciousness possibly exist anywhere other than the brain? The necessary structure just isn't there. Tons of neurons are needed for thought.
You should not deride another's love as unworthy without a damn good reason. Semantic bullshit is not a good reason.
Your argument in nothing but thinly veiled gay bashing.
That said, allowing gays to marry does not radically redefine marriage. You just flip the gender of one of the participants. Everything else stays the same.
Naivete. Charity is insufficient. Many people will behave selfishly if they can get away with it. Do you honestly think everybody in America is going to voluntarily give up 20 or 30 percent of their income to charity? If they don't then we'll have to say goodbye to medicaid and social security.
Most of your points are just common myths.
You don't need to make it mandatory in order to get most people to donate, you just need to make it opt-out rather than opt-in.
The big advantage of in-person debates is that they're fast. A full week of back and forth with somebody here on CD could often be condensed into one five minute conversation in person.
Plus, non-verbal communication can make it easier to get a point across.
The typical libertarian pitch. It makes sense on the surface and has a lot of populist appeal, but it completely blows off the mainstream economic view, which is that government investment can indeed result in a better economy.
Printing money does of course lead to inflation and lowers its value, but he ignores the fact that it also helps dampen the effects of boom-bust cycles so that when the economy crashes, the effects aren't as devastating as they would be otherwise.
Also, like all small government guys, he refuses to differentiate between spending and investment. If your 18 year old kid can't afford to go to college do you advise him to get student loans or do you tell him to forget school and go get a job a McDonalds?
Sounds like a good idea. I don't think I would want to post my personal problems on the internet, but I can see other people being interested in that sort of thing.
It would probably be better to post this debate on the main site so more people will see it.
Also, you should post a link to the page.
Good luck!
I'm looking for away to get rid of the "Should Blacks be allowed to vote?" debate, but I don't see an option for that... Guess I'll e-mail the site maintainers about it.
How did that even get here? The dude who created the debate doesn't seem to be a member. I guess he could have joined, posted, and then unjoined?
Corporations are coercive if you're poor. People need to buy groceries from somewhere, and there are only a few affordable options. There would most likely only be one option without government regulation.
It takes massive resources to be able to extract profit at such low margins like Wal-Mart does. This need for massive capital creates a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry for potential competitors.
Further, if one corporation adopts shady business practices to cut costs, the others will have no choice but to follow suit to avoid losing business. The informed, idealistic segment of society is a very small market.
Government needs to be coercive because many people will behave selfishly if they can get away with it.
On a side note, I think it would be better to have this conversation in a separate debate, rather than nestled in some obscure corner of an earlier debate. Feel free to create a new debate if you would like to continue this conversation.
I just do a few simple excercises when my lower back starts hurting. Specifically:
http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/info/warrior-pose1.asp
http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/info/chair-pose.asp
http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/yogapractice/side.asp
http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/yogapractice/
Only takes a minute or two, and makes me feel a lot better.
If "yoga" sounds too hippy for you, just call them stretches :)
I'm thinking about just making everybody who joins this group an admin.
Hopefully we can trust each other not to go deleting arguments we disagree with or engaging in other sorts of bad behavior.
I'm wondering, is it possible for one of you other guys to remove my admin status (and then put it back :)? I can do this from Admin -> Manage Users. One problem I could see with this scheme is one jerk deciding to take away admin status from everyone else.
I see that many of the objections people have raised revolve around health issues.
Posture problems and such can be prevented with yoga style stretching exercises.
All you need for decent cardiovascular health is to take a 20 minute walk once a day, and maintain a healthy diet.
The eyes are another stress point, but again there are ways of dealing with eye strain.
Finally, I've found the stretching exercises demonstrated in this video to be amazing at warding off tendinitis and carpal tunnel.
I would say I spend around 60% of my waking hours sitting in front of a computer. I don't think this is a bad thing. In my view being online allows one to reach a higher state of being. I am connected to a vast web of ideas. I can easily communicate with people all over the world. I can search through a large portion of the world's knowledge. I turn myself into a node in the vast metamind that is the internet.
The only thing missing is, of course, human contact. I do get lonely if I go too long without hanging out with my friends in the real world. So I spend a significant amount of time socializing. But I view this mostly as a maintenance activity... something to keep the lower part of my brain happy.
I can hardly stand to debate in the real world anymore. You barely have time to think. It's impractical to provide citations. Only one person can talk at a time. You can't even Ctrl+F. How absurd!
Oh yes, those poor, poor millionaires. Their suffering cuts me to my core.
A Democratic government is an extension of the PEOPLE. It is the people who have decided to take a bit from everyone in order to maintain a minimal quality of life for the poor.
Yes, in a perfect world everyone would be able to support themselves. But we will always have people who can't hack it, and these people must be cared for. You are deluded if you think we can get rid of poverty by taking away the social safety net. Even from your anti-human perspective, you can see that if you have a lot of people unable to provide for their families you're going to face big problems -- higher crime rates, overcrowded prisons, and rioting.
After eight weeks it's not called any embryo, it's called a fetus. I'm arguing there's definitely nothing wrong with destroying it before then.
I think I could convince you to push the line back further, but let's leave it there for now.
If a woman feels guilty about aborting an embryo it's just because of bullshit morals beaten into her head. Regret could come from not having a kid when she had the chance, but not from committing murder.
These things seem wrong to you because of the strong values you have been raised with. Our society and especially our parents shape our ideas about right and wrong. Closer inspection, however, can reveal that these values don't always have a logical foundation.
"We do the right thing because we don't want to cause pain."
This sounds reasonable to me. But, of course, embryos are incapable of feeling pain.
