Hey, hostile visitors! Do you have an opinion about, for example, Mary Koss’ rape research? Do you want to discuss it even though the topic has not actually come up by itself in any of the threads and none of my recent posts really have much to do with the specifics of anyone’s rape research? Well, from now on you can discuss it here with anyone who wishes to follow you to this thread.
Added bonus: If you continue to try to discuss it in other threads you’ll be banned!
This also applies to future derailers riding hobbyhorses of their own having nothing to do with Koss.
Happy discussing!
Note: If you wish to discuss the topics at hand, you know, topics directly related to my posts and/or to what other people are discussing and that aren’t, you know, personal hobbyhorses of yours that involve long screeds and various things that you’ve probably already cut and pasted into the comments sections of various other websites until you were banned from them for endless derailing and general asswipery, feel free to remain in the original threads.
Parenthetical: I’m waiting to see a vegetarian eatery anywhere in this city that doesn’t assume everyone is able to eat hot, spicy food. And if I wanted to go vegetarian only in my food for home(my suburb isn’t a food desert but could be described as semi-arid) it would be the most basic vegetables only. Nothing exotic (hell, I’ve never seen most of the vegetable varieties that get talked about here) because that’s all that’s on sale in either supermarket. Plenty of frozen vegetarian meals if you really want to eat a shitload of salt and goodness knows what else (plus the whole hot-food issue), but that’s it.
There’s also the little issue of more than one person in a household. I’m not the cook at home, and even if I were, I’d have no right to impose my diet on my mother, who has her own health issues. I’m not coming home after an eleven hour day to cook for one, either; I’m getting less than the minimum wage despite effectively working full time, Mum’s on the pension, and food prices in Oz are always high. It’s not only the extreme food desert Pecunium describes that affects the issue, even if one accepts the premise that everyone should ideally be vegetarian or vegan.
So Bob – back off this one, please?
Bob: I’m not making this comment to pike on. I’m trying to show you what I see as the rhetorical, and logical, errors you made in presenting your case.
Where’s the disconnect? Honestly, I thought delineating the difference between judging you, as a person, and stating a general moral principle for discussion’s sake, would clear this up.
It’s that you chose to make your moral baseline the baseline for everyone.
The problem is… from your baseline, you came to moral conclusions. Then you presented them as if they were the best, perhaps the only, right end state.
That means those who didn’t agree are either too dense to come to the logical conclsions, or heartless; and somewhat immoral.
You may not have meant to do that, but by using that a priori, and assuming we all shared the idea of using such an a priori you invalidated, not merely, other people’s opinions, but called into question their right to have them.
You also insulted them. You knew that many of us aren’t vegetarians, yet you laid out your case as, “This is what a consistent moral philosophy must conclude, when intelligent people ponder it”.
So either they didn’t ponder it, or they weren’t intelligent about it, or they are immoral.
I don’t think you meant to say that. I think the clarity of your sense of things blinded you to the idea others might, having reasoned it out, come to a different conclusion.
From a tactical standpoint; you need to assses the audience. That they seem sympatico on A, b, and 3, doesn’t mean the B, d, and 5, are anything like the same.
Until you know what their baselines are, you can’t afford (if you want to have a meaningful dialogue) to assume they work from the same starting principles, because alienating them will prevent you from being able to persuade them later.
“who has her own health issues”
Should have added in case it wasn’t obvious, “her own tastes and right to choose what she wants to eat, not least since she’s cooking it”.
So, Bob, am I totally immoral for needing to eat meat for my health, or should I just stuff myself silly with veggies and pray I get enough iron between them and the supplements? Am I evil for hating beans? I really want to know.
No, hellkell, you’re in good company!
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/005/5/3/beans_are_evil_by_xana_1-d36goot.jpg
Totally OT I posted the Salamanderesss dress pic before, didja see it?
HAHAHAHA! Evil beans.
Yes, I saw it, it looks fabulous.
No, you’re not. I kind of touched on this in the part of my response to Aaliyah’s comment. If you have a health issue that makes vegetarianism impossible for you, then a person who’s a vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons cannot hold that against you. It’s wrong and unjust of them to do so.
I’m going back to listening and watching mode now; I only posted this one because you asked me directly.
hellkell, thanks! I’m really pleased with it, not least cos Medium fits better’n Large!
I’m sure I’ve seen Evil Beans as a name somewhere.
I should call Fribby that. It describes her more relaxed moments on my lap. ::choke:: ::gag::
Bob: No, you’re not. I kind of touched on this in the part of my response to Aaliyah’s comment. If you have a health issue that makes vegetarianism impossible for you, then a person who’s a vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons cannot hold that against you. It’s wrong and unjust of them to do so.
You are still doing it.
If you have a health issue that makes vegetarianism impossible for you, then a person who’s a vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons cannot hold that against you.
Who decides the question of, “makes vegetarianism impossible for you”, and where do you get off saying vegetarians, as a class, have a right to make moral judgements about people’s diets?
And, how are the vegetarians supposed to determine if someone’s meat eating is legitimate?
You have made all of those things true, because you have cast the moral valuation of vegetarians as a thing one ought to be concerned about.
Which it isn’t.
Bad bad beans!
My favorite from that is:
Get out, and stay out!
…at a piece of buttered toast.
Bob, pretty much what Pecunium said. You still are trying to dictate people’s morality. Doing that is destined to fail, no matter your intent.
And now I am taking my ancient, and creaking self to bed.
Shorter pecunium (gods that sounds weird, and risky): you don’t get to police other people’s food choices, period.
There’s a tactful way to suggest that maybe they make other choices but:
1) that requires far more knowledge of your audience than you have of us (or, likely, any group)
2) you not make it about them
Damnit creaky one, I was finally getting around to emailing you!
OK, then.
I would like to discuss veganism and animal rights, from the perspective of advocacy. If stating my baseline assumption and then replying to comments from that perspective is not the proper way to begin, how and where would you all like to begin?
Eh, Bob, I’ll opt out, I think. The whole thread’s been pretty emotionally draining, one way and another.
I will say I hope you and ArchaeoHolmes (hi, if you’re reading!) don’t stop commenting in general on the site because of how this one went. I like you both.
I really am not up for going into this in depth, but you should, in any ethical discussion, assume that everyone thinks the opposite of you, and for reasons that either are valid, or seem so to them.
That is, assume that if you do not first gauge their views, and carefully, they’ll go on the defensive and all hope of meaningful discussion will be lost.
And never Godwin, nor make comparisons to genocide (that’s more a comment about a very long, tiring, frustrating, email conversation with a non-boobzer).
If you so much as think about thinking that death from natural causes is worse than genocide because natural causes kill more people, go sit in the corner of shame until you think staring at a wall could be a form of torture (I’d say to go stand on a box over an electrified floor, but I’m not actually advocating torture here)
Actually, torture is a good example of what I mean. You’d think “we can all agree that torture is morally wrong” would be fine right? But then, inevitably, someone pulls the ticking time bomb scenario. And it all goes to shit if you don’t actually know about torture and are arguing just from the assumed to be shared moral groundwork.
Torture’s pecunium’s specialty in a way, he lectures on why it’s never justified, so either of us can devils advocate the ticking time bomb if you want. (I have read way too much of his writings on the topic.)
I will discuss vegan food with you anytime, anywhere, but I’m not much interested in discussing the ethics portion much because that’s half my Facebook wall sometimes. I would like to ask you though, Bob, are you an abolitionist or a welfarist? How important is the distinction to you?
FWIW, I’ve been a vegetarian for over 10 years. I believe veganism is an admirable way to live, but it’s not for me. Everyone is always welcome at my dinner table though, and you can bring whatever you like. Except if you’re a cannibal. I have to draw the line somewhere.
@serrana — The distinction doesn’t matter much to me in general. It would depend on the specific issue.
@ Argenti — I see your point there, but I always hope to start from a place of common ground, which is why I brought up that bit about common moral principles of inflicting the least harm. But yeah, note to self.
” I see your point there, but I always hope to start from a place of common ground…”
But to do that you need to figure out what ground you have in common. Also, we’ve been done the utilitianism rabbit hole So. Many. Times. around here. Tread carefully with those arguments in general. Yeah, least harm is good in principle, but assuming that your view of what is least harmful is correct is never going to come off well. Also, dear gods do I not want to have another conversation that involved the utilitianism monster or wtf-ever that’s called.
Generally speaking though, go with general questions first and then discuss the common ground in a non-judgmental manner. Assuming there is any that isn’t absolutely abhorant (it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion with Eurosabra, if you hadn’t noticed) — a relevant example would be, say, people who enjoy torturing animals for the fun of it (you know, budding serial killer types)…which people who enjoy the taste of meat are not. Even if you see eating meat as torturing animals, full stop, there is still the difference between torture as the end goal, versus the means to the end. And yes, the ends never justify the means, but the solution here isn’t to go all in “that’s torture” which will always result in people getting defensive, but a *chuckle* appeal to emotion.
Spot! That! Fallacy!
But at least that goes over better if done tactfully. “But fish are my pets!” goes over better than “you wouldn’t eat dog now would you?” (Lol, I actually know someone who has, study abroad in um, Mongolia?)
Or on the topic of torture, you don’t go straight for calling the subtle examples torture, particularly not those that, well, resemble my corner of shame point. Yeah, solitary confinement and psychological torture are torture, but if you word if vaguely enough that it sounds like a kid getting pissed about having to sit alone in the corner is being tortured, well, you can imagine how that’d go over, right?
(Um, I have an extra special piece of hatred for the APA’s involvement at gitmo, I can explain about psychology torture if need be, but I am going to bed soon, getting my
faceteeth drilled in t-7~)So, just as a general principle, telling people “what you’re doing is morally repugnant but it’s a special circumstance so I’ll make an exception” is never going to go over well. You’re either going to make them feel ashamed anyway or you’re going to convince them that you’re full of shit.
This reminds me of conservative evangelicals who I’ve heard saying that all stay-at-home husbands are worthless failures, unless they’re injured or something and unable to work, in which case it’s OK. Do you think men at those churches who can’t work go away thinking “they said it was OK in my case, so that’s fine then?” Or do you think they went away feeling like worthless losers?
On the analogy about food choices versus sexual choices…Bob, do you really not see how wrong that was? Not only because, as people have said, eating is essential to survival and sex is not. Also because it’s an attempt to play on women’s fear of rape in order to force them to support your position on food ethics. That’s a shitty thing to do. It’s sneaky and manipulative and really not cool at all.
I think you’re generally a decent person, from what I’ve seen so far, so I’m not telling you to get lost. But please don’t ever attempt to use women’s fear of sexual violence to manipulate them into agreeing with you again.
I apologize if I also came across as condescending and self-righteous in the last few pages.
I completely agree.
@CassandraSays,
This is an explanation, not an attempt at making an excuse: I wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone into agreeing with me. I was trying to demonstrate what hellkell’s responses sounded like to me at the time.
But if I could take that back, I would. It was immensely stupid and offensive of me, and I apologize to everyone for doing it.