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On June 11 2019 23:07 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 22:53 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 22:52 farvacola wrote:
Why is rationality the touchstone for determining the propriety of individual actions against the backdrop of society as a whole when that game is full to the brim with necessarily irrational decision making? Rationality isn't a state, it's a method. Why not use it every time we can, regardless of the times when we can't? Because “using” rationality when it is neutral or uncalled for creates a host of problems, one of the biggest being the lack of ability to argue using other persuasive methods among leftists. It’s that “rationality every time, until it doesn’t work” attitude that leads to incredibly stupid popular tacks like the “herp derp, big man in the sky retards” criticism of religion. I like eating meat, I try to only purchase meat that is raised responsibly, and there is a fair amount of highly complicating evidence in terms of meat and animal products being important dietary sources. Whether or not I act on those bases has only a tangential relationship to rationality at best.
I don't see a reason why it's uncalled for here. It's a statement or a series of statements about the material world. There is a lot of moral judgement around but we can work around it and stick to a discussion of the facts. It sounds like a discussion worth having.
And in the case of religion I think I'm willing to argue that atheism is irrational, so... that might be a fun one for the thread.
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On June 11 2019 23:10 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:There's prolly some correlation to the whole vegan thing - the perception that cyclists and vegans have a holier than thou attitude, and that this perception is caused by a pretty tiny group of vocal vegans/cyclists. I don't think the they 'are jealous of their discipline' theory has anything to it - it's just that people tend to condemn groups based on actions and statements made by individual members of a group. Enough vegans are annoying about it for many people to have encountered an annoying vegan (it makes sense to me - veganism is the type of lifestyle change you will only really bother with undertaking if you care exceptionally much about it, it's not like 'I'm gonna try to drink a bit less' or whatever, thus people who are into it are likely to care about it.) But it doesnt mean vegans/cyclists have a holier than thou attitude, just that it makes sense that people might have that perception.  Hey I disagree with Drone for once, I think Jock is right. It's much easier to do what you've always done without asking yourself too many questions, but it has moral ramifications. A lot of people get angry at vegans because vegans have asked themselves that question, and they came up with the non-reassuring answer that the behavior we've always had is wrong. This suggests that if you asked yourself that question, you might change your own behavior, and therefore that right now you might be doing something morally reprehensible. From this setup it's pretty easy to have someone say "I'm vegan" and hear "You're a bad person", which is probably not what they were saying in the first place.
It's nice to dissect motivations with some deep psychological analysis about how critics are projecting stuff and this and that, but the reality is that this argument tries to trivialize people's problems and downplay thr frequency with which this stuff happens. It's the same with bikers. No one here said literally "all X does Y". The problem is when it is frequent enough to become a significant pattern.
Vegans often explicitly say "you're a bad person" to others. It's so common that it's a long-standing meme, particularly in more affluent communities. This also doesn't even address the dynamic that lifestyles such as vegan or commuting via biking are themselves born of a certain level of privilege, and yet have definite moral value judgments attached to them.
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On June 11 2019 23:15 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:10 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:There's prolly some correlation to the whole vegan thing - the perception that cyclists and vegans have a holier than thou attitude, and that this perception is caused by a pretty tiny group of vocal vegans/cyclists. I don't think the they 'are jealous of their discipline' theory has anything to it - it's just that people tend to condemn groups based on actions and statements made by individual members of a group. Enough vegans are annoying about it for many people to have encountered an annoying vegan (it makes sense to me - veganism is the type of lifestyle change you will only really bother with undertaking if you care exceptionally much about it, it's not like 'I'm gonna try to drink a bit less' or whatever, thus people who are into it are likely to care about it.) But it doesnt mean vegans/cyclists have a holier than thou attitude, just that it makes sense that people might have that perception. Hey I disagree with Drone for once, I think Jock is right. It's much easier to do what you've always done without asking yourself too many questions, but it has moral ramifications. A lot of people get angry at vegans because vegans have asked themselves that question, and they came up with the non-reassuring answer that the behavior we've always had is wrong. This suggests that if you asked yourself that question, you might change your own behavior, and therefore that right now you might be doing something morally reprehensible. From this setup it's pretty easy to have someone say "I'm vegan" and hear "You're a bad person", which is probably not what they were saying in the first place. You’re doing a great job of proving the point originally made, that vegans (or their admirers) think themselves uniquely self-inquisitive and willing to address their own behavior is pretty close to an elemental holier than thou attitude.
I care very little about morality. It's almost never possible to prove or disprove someone's morality, and it isn't helpful politically as nobody will ever change their mind because someone else thinks they aren't being moral.
I'm fairly convinced that the mechanism that I depicted here exists, and that it is responsible for a lot of vegan arguments. If you're going to see this as me stating moral superiority... meh, I guess I can't stop you. You're wrong.
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On June 11 2019 23:15 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:07 farvacola wrote:On June 11 2019 22:53 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 22:52 farvacola wrote:
Why is rationality the touchstone for determining the propriety of individual actions against the backdrop of society as a whole when that game is full to the brim with necessarily irrational decision making? Rationality isn't a state, it's a method. Why not use it every time we can, regardless of the times when we can't? Because “using” rationality when it is neutral or uncalled for creates a host of problems, one of the biggest being the lack of ability to argue using other persuasive methods among leftists. It’s that “rationality every time, until it doesn’t work” attitude that leads to incredibly stupid popular tacks like the “herp derp, big man in the sky retards” criticism of religion. I like eating meat, I try to only purchase meat that is raised responsibly, and there is a fair amount of highly complicating evidence in terms of meat and animal products being important dietary sources. Whether or not I act on those bases has only a tangential relationship to rationality at best. I don't see a reason why it's uncalled for here. It's a statement or a series of statements about the material world. There is a lot of moral judgement around but we can work around it and stick to a discussion of the facts. It sounds like a discussion worth having. And in the case of religion I think I'm willing to argue that atheism is irrational, so... that might be a fun one for the thread.
Belief (or disbelief) in a higher power isn’t rational or irrational, it’s arational because it turns on a host of considerations that simply do not fit the rational/irrational dichotomy.
On June 11 2019 23:20 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:15 farvacola wrote:On June 11 2019 23:10 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:There's prolly some correlation to the whole vegan thing - the perception that cyclists and vegans have a holier than thou attitude, and that this perception is caused by a pretty tiny group of vocal vegans/cyclists. I don't think the they 'are jealous of their discipline' theory has anything to it - it's just that people tend to condemn groups based on actions and statements made by individual members of a group. Enough vegans are annoying about it for many people to have encountered an annoying vegan (it makes sense to me - veganism is the type of lifestyle change you will only really bother with undertaking if you care exceptionally much about it, it's not like 'I'm gonna try to drink a bit less' or whatever, thus people who are into it are likely to care about it.) But it doesnt mean vegans/cyclists have a holier than thou attitude, just that it makes sense that people might have that perception. Hey I disagree with Drone for once, I think Jock is right. It's much easier to do what you've always done without asking yourself too many questions, but it has moral ramifications. A lot of people get angry at vegans because vegans have asked themselves that question, and they came up with the non-reassuring answer that the behavior we've always had is wrong. This suggests that if you asked yourself that question, you might change your own behavior, and therefore that right now you might be doing something morally reprehensible. From this setup it's pretty easy to have someone say "I'm vegan" and hear "You're a bad person", which is probably not what they were saying in the first place. You’re doing a great job of proving the point originally made, that vegans (or their admirers) think themselves uniquely self-inquisitive and willing to address their own behavior is pretty close to an elemental holier than thou attitude. I care very little about morality. It's almost never possible to prove or disprove someone's morality, and it isn't helpful politically as nobody will ever change their mind because someone else thinks they aren't being moral. I'm fairly convinced that the mechanism that I depicted here exists, and that it is responsible for a lot of vegan arguments. If you're going to see this as me stating moral superiority... meh, I guess I can't stop you. You're wrong.
I don’t care to suss out your specific attitude on the subject, im merely pointing out that the mechanism you describe feeds into a lot of the disputes that lifestyle advocates rely on to justify any number of engagements with non-adherents.
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On June 11 2019 23:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 22:57 IgnE wrote:On June 11 2019 20:23 Stratos_speAr wrote:
It is precisely whataboutism.
We're not talking about drivers. As I said, everyone knows that drivers are dangerous. We're trying to get rid of driving through a host of different initiatives precisely because of this. Cops actually enforce traffic laws related to driving. People widely acknowledge how dangerous it is. […] Surely you see that "bikes are annoying" is implicitly an argument for more cars? You tacitly make this comparison throughout this post and the others before it. Here's an analogy: "Hillary is so old!" "But wait, Donald Trump is old too" "Stop your whataboutism, everyone knows Donald Trump is old!" You're creating a false dichotomy. The option isn't "bike or car". Its "car, or bike, or implement biking infrastructure better/make better rules, or improve other infrastructure such as busing, light rail, etc., or improve roads so traffic congestion isn't horrible, or any combination of the above."
maybe so, but I suppose I thought i was operating within your false dichotomy, that you were against bike lanes and bikes when i made that post. and you arent so thats fine, we broke out of it.
re: biking and privilege — have you compared the cost of a bike and a car? i went for a decade with only a bike before i had a car. i biked rain or shine. what do the deliverypeople in new york use? cheap stolen bikes.
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On June 11 2019 23:22 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:15 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 23:07 farvacola wrote:On June 11 2019 22:53 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 22:52 farvacola wrote:
Why is rationality the touchstone for determining the propriety of individual actions against the backdrop of society as a whole when that game is full to the brim with necessarily irrational decision making? Rationality isn't a state, it's a method. Why not use it every time we can, regardless of the times when we can't? Because “using” rationality when it is neutral or uncalled for creates a host of problems, one of the biggest being the lack of ability to argue using other persuasive methods among leftists. It’s that “rationality every time, until it doesn’t work” attitude that leads to incredibly stupid popular tacks like the “herp derp, big man in the sky retards” criticism of religion. I like eating meat, I try to only purchase meat that is raised responsibly, and there is a fair amount of highly complicating evidence in terms of meat and animal products being important dietary sources. Whether or not I act on those bases has only a tangential relationship to rationality at best. I don't see a reason why it's uncalled for here. It's a statement or a series of statements about the material world. There is a lot of moral judgement around but we can work around it and stick to a discussion of the facts. It sounds like a discussion worth having. And in the case of religion I think I'm willing to argue that atheism is irrational, so... that might be a fun one for the thread. Belief (or disbelief) in a higher power isn’t rational or irrational, it’s arational because it turns on a host of considerations that simply do not fit the rational/irrational dichotomy.
Sure. I would argue that based on this framing, agnosticism is the only rational position.
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On June 11 2019 23:13 KwarK wrote:
To me it sounds like the Mexico deal involves the US funding Mexican efforts to control the movement of asylum seekers and migrants. In short, Mexico is going to build a wall and the US is going to pay for it.
Art of the deal folks.
To be fair that wouldn't be too far off from what the Obama administration did with Mexico. Although the Obama admin avoided linking themselves with paying Mexico to police their southern boarder rather it was packaged under other agreements. It's not a terrible way if all you care about results.
It's only a dumb idea when Trump sets himself up as Grand Poobah, proclaiming everything to be groundbreaking.
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United States43255 Posts
On June 11 2019 23:25 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:13 KwarK wrote:
To me it sounds like the Mexico deal involves the US funding Mexican efforts to control the movement of asylum seekers and migrants. In short, Mexico is going to build a wall and the US is going to pay for it.
Art of the deal folks. To be fair that wouldn't be too far off from what the Obama administration did with Mexico. Although the Obama admin avoided linking themselves with paying Mexico to police their southern boarder rather it was packaged under other agreements. It's not a terrible way if all you care about results. It's only a dumb idea when Trump sets himself up as Grand Poobah, proclaiming everything to be groundbreaking.
Sure, it's just amusing to me because of the political context.
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On June 11 2019 23:18 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:10 Nebuchad wrote:On June 11 2019 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:There's prolly some correlation to the whole vegan thing - the perception that cyclists and vegans have a holier than thou attitude, and that this perception is caused by a pretty tiny group of vocal vegans/cyclists. I don't think the they 'are jealous of their discipline' theory has anything to it - it's just that people tend to condemn groups based on actions and statements made by individual members of a group. Enough vegans are annoying about it for many people to have encountered an annoying vegan (it makes sense to me - veganism is the type of lifestyle change you will only really bother with undertaking if you care exceptionally much about it, it's not like 'I'm gonna try to drink a bit less' or whatever, thus people who are into it are likely to care about it.) But it doesnt mean vegans/cyclists have a holier than thou attitude, just that it makes sense that people might have that perception. Hey I disagree with Drone for once, I think Jock is right. It's much easier to do what you've always done without asking yourself too many questions, but it has moral ramifications. A lot of people get angry at vegans because vegans have asked themselves that question, and they came up with the non-reassuring answer that the behavior we've always had is wrong. This suggests that if you asked yourself that question, you might change your own behavior, and therefore that right now you might be doing something morally reprehensible. From this setup it's pretty easy to have someone say "I'm vegan" and hear "You're a bad person", which is probably not what they were saying in the first place. Vegans often explicitly say "you're a bad person" to others. It's so common that it's a long-standing meme, particularly in more affluent communities. This also doesn't even address the dynamic that lifestyles such as vegan or commuting via biking are themselves born of a certain level of privilege, and yet have definite moral value judgments attached to them.
Did that actually happen to you? Because it has never happened to me. I have yet to meet one of these cliché militant vegans that many people seem to think of when they say "vegan". I have met multiple vegan (and a bunch more vegetarian) people that i know of, and every single one of them has only mentioned it when i was going to be cooking for them.
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I’ll also add that I think it’s incorrect to assert that moral arguments are basically worth ignoring because they operate differently than more plainly rational engagements. Many people do change their moral mind when faced with a persuasive counterpoint, though it is correct to point out that that practically never happens in typical political interactions. Something that relies more on certain kinds of relationships and authorities is required.
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Norway28712 Posts
On June 11 2019 23:10 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:There's prolly some correlation to the whole vegan thing - the perception that cyclists and vegans have a holier than thou attitude, and that this perception is caused by a pretty tiny group of vocal vegans/cyclists. I don't think the they 'are jealous of their discipline' theory has anything to it - it's just that people tend to condemn groups based on actions and statements made by individual members of a group. Enough vegans are annoying about it for many people to have encountered an annoying vegan (it makes sense to me - veganism is the type of lifestyle change you will only really bother with undertaking if you care exceptionally much about it, it's not like 'I'm gonna try to drink a bit less' or whatever, thus people who are into it are likely to care about it.) But it doesnt mean vegans/cyclists have a holier than thou attitude, just that it makes sense that people might have that perception. Hey I disagree with Drone for once, I think Jock is right. It's much easier to do what you've always done without asking yourself too many questions, but it has moral ramifications. A lot of people get angry at vegans because vegans have asked themselves that question, and they came up with the non-reassuring answer that the behavior we've always had is wrong. This suggests that if you asked yourself that question, you might change your own behavior, and therefore that right now you might be doing something morally reprehensible. From this setup it's pretty easy to have someone say "I'm vegan" and hear "You're a bad person", which is probably not what they were saying in the first place.
I know people get angry at vegans, I know that the implied 'you're a bad person for not caring as much as I do' is part of the reason why some people get angry at vegans. But I don't agree that there's any element of jealousy in terms of self-discipline. I used to eat a lot of meat. Now I eat probably 20% of the amount I used to eat. The reason why I'm not eating even less isn't lack of discipline, it's that I don't see the point - I don't see anything inherently wrong with eating meat, only with eating too much of it - because that is bad for the climate (but I don't think 'kill all livestock to save the climate' is good policy for many reasons), bad for animal welfare (if farms produced 80% less meat I'm confident each animal could have a far better life) and bad for yourself (while a proper vegan diet is certainly healthier than one containing large amounts of steak or fatty pork, it's not necessarily healthier than one containing smaller amounts of lean meat.. ) I have several vegan friends and frankly, none of them seem particularly disciplined - they are however all very ethically conscious people. But my experience is that people who aren't ethically conscious aren't jealous of people who are.
And I've never seen a car driver who seemed jealous of people riding bikes either..
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On June 11 2019 23:33 farvacola wrote:
I’ll also add that I think it’s incorrect to assert that moral arguments are basically worth ignoring because they operate differently than more plainly rational engagements. Many people do change their moral mind when faced with a persuasive counterpoint, though it is correct to point out that that practically never happens in typical political interactions. Something that relies more on certain kinds of relationships and authorities is required.
Okay well, we don't have this kind of situation here on this forum so I'm going to continue to mostly ignore moral arguments and feel that it is consistent with what you said.
The reason I bring that up is because it sounds like you think I'm Sam Harris or something. I'm not going to try and map the perfect Moral Landscape stemming from rationality, that's obviously nonsense. But it isn't self-evident that I think it's nonsense so I wanted to clarify that. I don't think your reaction of going kind of hard after the relatively benign thing I've said and calling me a vegan admirer, is based on what I've written here; I've been on this forum for years and that might be the first time I talk about veganism. It sounds more like you're reacting against a perceived attack, and that attack would be "vegans are morally superior to non vegans". Just wanted to state very clearly that this attack isn't present, and let you know why.
Drone: That's fair. Jealousy is probably not the correct term.
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We actually do have that situation here, only it isn’t evident in this thread anymore. Part of why I stick around is precisely because I have come to enjoy reading the perspectives of others, the character of which I have at least a marginal understanding of given the many years some of us have been posters here.
And again, this isn’t about reacting against a perceived attack, it’s about pointing out that any number of mechanisms at play in this vegan/non-vegan framework, like asserting that vegans are somehow more rational than their counterparts, do not really address the extent to which these judgments come from starkly arational places.
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If you look back to what I've said in the first place, it was that I can't disprove the argument that veganism is more rational than non-veganism, so clearly I disagree with you that it comes from a starkly arational place. You could have engaged me on that, instead you talked about moral judgements and admiration...
Anyway, let's get back to that. From what I can tell veganism is consistent as an ideology. Eating meat is probably not an ideology at all, it's just what we do. It requires a classification of sentient beings that isn't always consistent and that can be criticized rationally in a way that I think is compelling. I don't think there's any argument that which animals we get to eat and which animals we don't get to eat is based on tradition rather than a rational analysis of their sentience level or whatever.
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Not being able to disprove the idea that veganism is more rational than the alternative augurs just as much, if not more, in favor of the subject matter being arational as it does veganism being more rational.
So to bring things full circle, what’s the point of asserting that you cannot disprove the argument that veganism is more rational than the alternative?
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On June 12 2019 01:15 farvacola wrote:
Not being able to disprove the idea that veganism is more rational than the alternative augurs just as much, if not more, in favor of the subject matter being arational as it does veganism being more rational.
So to bring things full circle, what’s the point of asserting that you cannot disprove the argument that veganism is more rational than the alternative?
To see if my assertion can be shown to be incorrect, and therefore change my beliefs if that's the case.
Edit: technically the original goal here was to stand with Jock who I think was making a pretty interesting point by associating cycling to veganism. I gave you a more general goal.
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Lets say someone is able to prove that there are equally rational arguments on both sides of the vegan/non-vegan divide. Why would that matter?
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On June 11 2019 23:24 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2019 23:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:On June 11 2019 22:57 IgnE wrote:On June 11 2019 20:23 Stratos_speAr wrote:
It is precisely whataboutism.
We're not talking about drivers. As I said, everyone knows that drivers are dangerous. We're trying to get rid of driving through a host of different initiatives precisely because of this. Cops actually enforce traffic laws related to driving. People widely acknowledge how dangerous it is. […] Surely you see that "bikes are annoying" is implicitly an argument for more cars? You tacitly make this comparison throughout this post and the others before it. Here's an analogy: "Hillary is so old!" "But wait, Donald Trump is old too" "Stop your whataboutism, everyone knows Donald Trump is old!" You're creating a false dichotomy. The option isn't "bike or car". Its "car, or bike, or implement biking infrastructure better/make better rules, or improve other infrastructure such as busing, light rail, etc., or improve roads so traffic congestion isn't horrible, or any combination of the above." maybe so, but I suppose I thought i was operating within your false dichotomy, that you were against bike lanes and bikes when i made that post. and you arent so thats fine, we broke out of it. re: biking and privilege — have you compared the cost of a bike and a car? i went for a decade with only a bike before i had a car. i biked rain or shine. what do the deliverypeople in new york use? cheap stolen bikes.
Remember that not all Americans live in NYC. To live somewhere where I could feasibly use a bike/combine a bike with public transportation for my commute, I'd have to pay an extra $600 USD a month in rent. I'd also still need 2 cars because one of my jobs is not accessible by public transportation/biking and my wife doesn't even work in the metro area.
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On June 12 2019 01:47 farvacola wrote:
Lets say someone is able to prove that there are equally rational arguments on both sides of the vegan/non-vegan divide. Why would that matter?
Those are two contradictory positions, they can't both be equally rational.
So if you could show that veganism isn't rational, then I would stop believing that it is, and not make that argument in the future. Ideally I'd love to say I'd stop being vegan but as we established, I couldn't even bring myself to start. I'm weaker than I wish I was.
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On June 12 2019 01:50 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2019 01:47 farvacola wrote:
Lets say someone is able to prove that there are equally rational arguments on both sides of the vegan/non-vegan divide. Why would that matter? Those are two contradictory positions, they can't both be equally rational.
Sure, they can, as long as you don't start at the same axioms. Rationality simply describes a way to derive results from base truths, but those do not necessarily need to be the same for all persons. Different people have different goals and different ethical value positions, which can lead to different rational choices given a specific situation.
As an oversimplified example, lets say you have one person who is allergic to meat and animal products, and another which is allergic to vegetables in general. If both of those people compose their diet rationally, they will have radically different results.
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