Thread for Hostile Visitors to Endlessly Rehash the Issues They Have With Feminist Research or Whatever
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.
Posted on May 5, 2013, in off topic, open thread, shut up shut up shut up, TROOOLLLL!!. Bookmark the permalink. 1,161 Comments.
Yeah, I’m not sure what’s confusing about the very basic and true fact that people have to eat. They can’t all do it to Bob’s liking for a variety of reasons, which to Bob are excuses. Which is 100% organic bullshit on Bob’s part.
But hey, some of his very best philosophy BFs are underprivileged.
pecunium,
That’s fair enough, I guess. I think I’ll just shut up and listen some more. I really didn’t think anyone would find the general moral principle objectionable, in itself. I’m admittedly handling this clumsily.
Odds of a McDonalds in reasonable distance? Shittastically high.
Quality, oh fuck no, but cheap and available? Yes.
And seriously Bob, please the reconsider the idea that everyone has the time and energy to philosophize over every choice. Working parents for example, students with a full course load and little money (extra stupid if there’s a part time job involved, I ate so much shit food in those days…)
Yeah, underprivileged people sometimes philosophize, but when I was getting home after 8am to 9pm in either class or work, I was not debating the ethics of my dinner, I was nuking something from a package, or stopping for pizza on my way home.
Also, yeah, you are making the assumption that people evaluate “everything” from your baseline about animal rights. Everything would imply, you know, everything. Does the dentist I went to today offer employee benefits or employee part time workers they can get away not offering those to? Does my psych compensate their interns fairly? Things I have neither the energy nor inclination, nor ability to worry about — there are no other psych clinics I can use, cuz shitty state insurance, no other local dentist is taking new patients. Doesn’t matter how ethical either office is, I have no other choices.
Fuck, I’m typing this on an iPad, shall we start into apple ethics? (Hint, they’re probably crueler than eating meat occasionally) But I needed a new device as my old Mac is slowly dying and I can’t afford a proper laptop, absolutely refuse to put up with teh suck that is windows, and have a safelink phone so a smart phone was out. Seeing how I didn’t intend to use it for reading, kindle et al were out…getting the picture here?
Welcome to life, where people tend to look at a series of annoying or questionable options and pick the least bad one.
Bob: But this isn’t really an argument against veganism, per se. A person in this situation wouldn’t be able to buy quality meat or dairy, either.
But you said you didn’t believe there were places where getting vegetarian food, at affordable rates, really existed.
That even in, “food deserts” (which you think to be more urban related than they are; If you doubt me, try to live as a vegan in Pioneer Point, Calif.) an affordable vegetarian lifestyle was possible.
So telling me that I was making an “argument against veganism” is a bit rich. I was making an argument that your, “food deserts aren’t a thing I really accept” is demonstrably lacking in perspective.
My housemate, in that food desert, is a vegetarian. I know all about how hard it was to get produce. I also lived in farm areas in Calif. My ex’s sister’s ex is a farm labor rep for the US Dep. of Labor. I know more about the horrific conditions of farm workers than I ever wanted to. And that’s farm laborers in the US. Not in Chile, or Guatemala.
So I have some problems with the conclusions you draw from your baselines too. I know where my meat comes from. I have no idea about lots of that produce.
“And that’s farm laborers in the US.”
Oh gods, this, so much this. I keep ending up behind by typing too much, so I won’t, but if you really want to hate humanity, google it (like, more than the MRM makes you hate humanity, as, remember, their bark is worse than their bite)
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.
@ Bob
Thank you. BTW, I’m fine with you advocating for vegetarianism, and I’m not telling you to shut up about it (sorry if it came across that way, I’m kind of lacking sleep). Thing is, though, coming at it from the perspective that of course your moral choices are the correct ones is guaranteed to get some people’s backs up, especially when the subject is something as heavily tied up in cultural and family stuff as food. Whether or not you want to deal with that level of confrontation is up to you, but you kind of have to expect thst if you present things in a way that suggests that other people’s choices are unethical it’s going to cause some heated discussion.
On a practical level, the perspective I’m coming from is that I’ve lived on 4 different continents and the tendency for people to be very attached to the way they grew up eating and very reluctant to make major changes seems to be a universal human trait. Veganism is a hard sell for people who didn’t grow up with it. Persuading people that animal welfare is important and therefore trying to minimize cruelty in meat production is an easier sell, I think, especially if you back it up with discussion of why eating a bit less meat might be a good thing from a health perspective and the fact that meat raised under more ethical conditions also tends to be of higher quality. I don’t thing there’s any way to get the world to go vegan, but I do think that shifting to a system where people eat less meat, and the meat they eat is produced in less cruel ways, is possible (hard, but possible). If it happens it will be a slow process, and it’s probably going to be more effective to use the carrot (ethically produced meat tastes better, eating less meat of higher quality is better for your health) rather than the stick (you are a horrible person who doesn’t care that you’re hurting animals). Figuring out ways to sell people on the idea that vegetarian food can taste great needs to be a big part of that strategy, too, because on a very basic level eating is about pleasure.
BTW since this seems to have become the stuff about animals thread (and the one about the Cleveland kidnappings is incredibly depressing), I thought it was a good excuse to drop this link. Rottweilers are misandry!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11413740
(In that apparently they don’t think rape is OK.)
Oh my god a paleobiology undergrad showed up to try it on about biology and veganism and I missed it?
*a single crystal tear*
Cassandra, while on holiday Dr Glass and I witnessed some Duck Misandry. A male mallard had attempted to rape a female mallard, as they sadly do, and as we arrived she and her mate were drowning him. The mate had swooped down and knocked him off her back and then she’d jumped on top of the rapist and held his head under water.
We are a cold-hearted meat-eatin’ pair of evil biologists and we were like SHOULD WE DO SOMETHING, but the female duck seemed to be working out her rage quite well, so we held hands and watched and said NATURE IS SO BEAUTIFUL.
Ah, a woman who shares my sense of humor. I will admit that the thought of the rapist in the story I linked to potentially peeing himself in terror upon being charged by an enraged, fully grown Rottweiler while he had his pants down filled my Grinchy little heart with glee.
Thirding the YAY JAKE cheers, Rotty hero, and YAY DUCK AND DRAKE!
Bob: Argenti — I see your point there, but I always hope to start from a place of common ground
Don’t. If you have a place of common ground, the odds are you don’t need to preach. More to the point, this isn’t really the forum for evangalism. That should be done one on one.
The problem with your, “common ground” position is that it’s, at root the “anti-pacifism” argument (actually, it’s the anti-anything argument). If you set the ground, and then work from there, then the only “rational” conclusion has been predecided.
It may not have been, when you decided it, but when you start to map how you got there, all that goes away.
Here’s how it works in the anti-pacifism scenario.
1: There will always be people in the world who decide to prey on others.
2: Some of them will be willing to kill/extort/terrrorise to get what they want.
3: The only way to stop them will require violence, because they will not refrain from violence.
QED pacifism isn’t possible, on a large scale (no matter what personal preference one might have).
First corrolary: Advocating pacifism is, at some level, immoral, because if it were adopted as a societal practice then the predators would be able to take over.
Second corrolary: pacifists themselves are, no matter how pure their purpose, and well-managed their lives, they are living off the violence they know others will have to do in their behalf.
Which is all bullshit; but internally consistent; and drawn, inevitably from the start condition (and yes, I’ve heard every one of those arguments, lots, and lots, and lots of times. No, I’m not a pacifist. I am pacifisitic, yes, but so much not an actual pacifist).
For diputational advocacy to be be a working method of persuasion the possibility of the other side being right has to be entertained.
It’s why the local trolls all fail. They 1: refuse to accept that any other interpretation of events can be right and 2: (more critically) refuse to believe we can possibly be persuaded.
They refuse to believe that our calls for citation, and data, are honest. This problem (more than the first) is why the get such short shrift. When the desire is, “accept that I am right”, not “see why I think this is best”, the conflict in viewpoints is likely to end in acrimony.
And it may be that what you were trying to do was, “see why I think this is best”, but your start condition (i.e. we all have the same base rules for determining this sort of moral question) made it much more of, “see why I am right”.
It may be premature to ask this, but can katz or cloudiah or someone with manboobz related blogs compile this all into a “how to have a reasoned discussion about things you care deeply about”?
Because I’ve seen so much fail over the years (lol, back in HS, class debate over executing the mentally handicapped, I got “but what if it was your mother (ze) killed?!” And no, that is not the sort of appeal to emotion that’s going to help matters)
That class is also the source of “and then queen Victoria got all pissy” (an answer about the history of the insanity plea…a correct one even)
I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a foodie in the first place. Doesn’t that just mean a person loves food that tastes good? That would be the vast majority of people. Loving food is human nature, not a sign of entitlement. Now if you’re talking about food snobs, I agree. It can be annoying when someone brags about having wine that’s a hundred years old for makes a big deal about eating salmon from Alaska.
I know one way to not go about spreading a vegetarian message, and that’s what this guy did All he ended up doing was make people panic that animal rights people want to take the food away from our grocery stores. If he wants to talk about animal rights and food to a bunch of people who hunt and fish, then he’s going to need to use different tactics.
I guess I’m just seeing things from a different perspective here anyway. My dad used to hunt until he was 49, when he had a stroke and can no longer handle rifles. My brother still hunts. We all love fishing. My brother goes frog gigging, and I clean and cook the frog legs. The idea of giving up all of these activities is really sad, because I have so many warm memories from it.
By the way, I also agree that it’s wrong for meat eaters to be pushy or rude to vegans. Sometimes meat eaters are assholes to vegans, like the things people in Joplin said to that protestor, calling him a hippie or telling him to stay in California. All of that was wrong, so I can understand vegetarians being defensive.
There definitely are a lot of asshole meat-eaters that feel the need to bully vegetarians, and they actually bother me even more because they don’t even have a justification for why their preferred lifestyle is superior.
Something I noticed back when I was going on dates with people I didn’t know well was that a lot of guys would find out I was vegetarian, tell me categorically that they couldn’t be with me long-term and then start pestering me for sex really aggressively. Like, a really normal date suddenly having a bucket of ice water thrown on it, and then remarkably shifting in tone towards creepy sexual aggression. I’m not sure what to make of that. Maybe once these dudes knew I wasn’t “long-term material”, they wanted to get in my pants while they (thought they) could? Maybe they thought being vegetarian was associated with being soft-hearted or a pushover?
Whatever the reason, being vegetarian turned into a pretty good asshole filter. Happened four or five times.
“I was not previously aware that bigotry was a sandwich spread that one could slather oneself in. Is that why angry men keep telling us to make them sandwiches?” Made me think of this.
http://i.imgur.com/WV7APyA.jpg?1