Scholar

That's because interpretation is not the same as that which is being interpreted. It's all nonsense, some teachers just take their nonsense more seriously than others, depending on how attached they are to it.

Another great documentary about the consequences of animal agriculture, specifically fishing, and how it is by far the biggest threat to our oceans. Must watch for every person who is consuming fish, or who thinks plastic straws are bad for the oceans. It also illustrates well why this problem can only be tackled by fundamentally changing our relationship to our brothers and sisters who live in the oceans, and by making the consumer responsible for their actions. You can find it on Netflix. We can use this thread to discuss fishing and the health of our oceans. Veganism is so powerful because it is a unified ideology that tackles all of these problems wholistically. You don't need to convince a person to care about each individual problem, rather you create a new moral framework from which all of these problems are tackled at once. One story that fundamentally changes how we relate to the world, because this change must happen.

I know this plot, it ends by Leo realizing that the carnivore diet made everything worse and that he reacts to vegetables even more severely than before, possibly permanently locking him into having to avoid plants for the rest of his life. Good case study on what desperation does to a mind.

Excellent presentation by Dr. Sailesh Rao, people who understand Spiral Dynamics with love this especially.

Isn't that the entire point of MAPS? If what they claim is true that he is somehow seen as an authority and leader who is looked at as a model by many of the pioneers that are to establish said"official" instutitions in the future, then I would say such criticizism probably have their use. This also has a function of bringing attention and conversation to this issue in general, and makes us contemplate what kind of practices we want to distance ourselves from to be able to establish such "official" systems in the future.

This is like debating what Little Red Riding Hoods grandma made herself for breakfast two days before the wolf ate her. Believe it or not, but the answer to your question depends on whatever you want it to be.

The closest thing we will get to a conversation between Leo and the rationalists he always criticizes.

They talk about how we need to reevaluate the way we engage with politics, applying specifically to the United States.

This isn't true, meat does not contain all the essential nutrients, nor are the important nutrients it contains exclusive to meat. If the school was worried about nutrition they would simply give the kids meals that were nutritionally adequat.

Because the very premise of veganism "insults" butchers and animal slavers, because it showcases that in the eyes of the animals these individuals commit atrocities. I have already posted this study a few times, but here: https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1368430215618253 Vegans are inevitably going to be discriminated against because they are norm challenging, especially in regards to morality.

To be fair, I did notice this too. I think Leo sometimes just doesn't take the time to properly engage because it would be too much effort, but that can often lead him to dismiss others with this authoritative vibe where really he didn't even engage with what was being said. I don't know how this applies in this thread, but I definitely felt misunderstood and strawmanned by Leo quite a few times in the past on this forum. Maybe it's the nature of the way he interacts with us here. It would be nice though if he could sometimes put in a bit more effort to understand others.

While this is true, Nathan probably has already heard this, and it probably does not help him much in terms of overcoming his suffering. We have to give our brothers and sisters more specific advice for the point at which they currently are, I think. Yes it is more effort, but I think helping one person properly can do more healing than helping 10 people in a cookie cutter way.

This is also a good example: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4574806/vegan-schoolboy-louie-tom-fenton-hanged-himself-bullies-threw-meat-at-him/ This is how this attitude and culture of "Vegans are so annoying and judgemental!" leads to in the extremes. Imagine you are the boy, you love animals and you hate that other people pay for animals to be abuse. Imagine someone came to you and told you "Man, stop being so judgmental, no wonder you are bullied you are such a typical vegan!", can you see how this lacks compassion? This kid wasn't vegan because he wanted to feel superior to others, he probably just loved animals. The child most likely had a more expansive identity than all the other kids in his class. He was more sensitive towards life and had more compassion for others. Yet many people in here would focus their judgment on this kid, and tell him about how veganism is all about being judgmental and that he should stop being so strict with caring about animals. As always:

@ilja The link works fine for me. Here is an excerpt, one of the tablets:

This is actually interesting, a study showing how vegans are being discriminated against and that there are severe biases against them. When we talk about judgment, I think it is important to understand both sides of the coin. In my experience many vegans become judgmental after they feel marginalized and judged by their friends and family for being vegan. In fact our culture is so biased against veganism that simply going vegan for many is difficult out of the fear for discrimination. Vegans are humans like everyone else, I think it is very unfair to put the entire pressure on them. "Well just accept the meat eaters for who they are, sure they think you are a soyboy and make fun of you all the time, but be nice anyways!" https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1368430215618253

Most people here are non-vegans so they will not understand this position at all. To them veganism is just about a lifestyle, when fundamentally it is about the expansion of identity. See, if you are a racist, you do not care about what happens to a person of another race. You do not judge your own race for enslaving and mistreating other races. In this context it is effortless to be non-judgemental, because to not judge people for something you do not care about is not really a big deal. If I don't care about children, why would I care about what pedophiles do to them? As identity expands, people start to care about more and more things. They expand their circle of care. This is natural and this is inevitable. This is good and this is healthy. Someone who starts caring about children will naturally start to judge the pedophiles. See, it is better to care about the animals than to care about bacon. The difference between you and most people on this forum is that they do not care about the animals, but they do care about their bacon. So what they will do is, they will judge you for your judgement. They do this to protect their bacon, and you judge them to protect the animals. Genuine compassion is integral to your evolution as an individual. This stage you are in is natural, and you should embrace it for what it is. Can you see that the apathy so hailed sometimes by the spiritual community quite often leads to inaction? God does not care about apathy, God cares precisely as much as you do. He changes the world through your will, it is inevitable. And in this way he acts, as is appropriate. The right action here is not to scrutinize your beliefs as a vegan, infact most people here should be scrutinizing their beliefs about bacon. What you need to have is compassion for yourself. Understand that you are judgemental because of your compassion. Surpressing your emotions into a state of apathy will do the opposite of good. Many people belief that veganism is about eating habits, when it is about establishing a new moral baseline and expanding our identity to include animals. From that point of view, contributing to the commodification of animals becomes untenable, as much as to anyone in this forum the commodification, breeding and slaughter of human children is untenable. Nobody here would be non-judgemental about child rape if they saw it happen infront of their eyes, yet they completely accept the same happening to their animal brothers and sisters. This is because they fundamentally do not care about their brothers and sisters, not because they are somehow more developed than the rest of us. You care, and this is beautiful. What needs to change is your expression of your care. Caring means suffering. Infact, God cares so much about each and every one of his children that he will experience every bit of suffering they are experiencing. He has compassion to the highest possible degree. He will take the suffering of his children onto himself. Embodiment of this is called the Passion of Christ, not the Apathy of Christ. Christ lived with full compassion in his heart. He cared about his brothers and sisters. But he cared so much that he was able to see that all of his brothers and sisters simply were blind. This is what you must realize. Those who you judge, they are simply ignorant. They do not know what they are doing. If you truly realize this, you will not be able to judge them. So this is not about veganism, this is not about you caring about animals. This is fundamentally about you not having enough compassion for your fellow brothers and sisters, who are blind, who need Love, who are defined by their fear and suffering. The concept of the selfish carer is fundamentally flawed. We do not simply care because we want to validate ourselves. We care because we recognize ourselves in the other. That is fundamentally what compassion and empathy is. People here misunderstand vegans because they fundamentally lack compassion for both the animals and the vegans. I know my brother or sister that you do not judge them to prove something to yourself, but simply because you care so much about your animal brothers and sisters, that it pains you to see them suffering, and to see others contribute to that suffering. Can you recognize this pain? The pain you feel when you open your heart to your animal brothers and sisters? This pain is overwhelming, is it not? If you had true compassion for all the suffering in this world, imagine the amount of pain you would need to carry. How could you face this kind of pain without falling into apathy? How could you carry this weight without crumbling? The answer is Love and acceptance. To accept the pain does not mean for the pain to disappear, nor to stop caring about it. To accept it means to embrace your compassion, to open your heart fully. To carry the cross, in other words. This is what it means, this is what radical embodiment is. It is to care about the suffering of all of your brothers and sisters, while remaining full of Love and open-heartedness. This is the true challenge, atleast from your current point of view. But first have compassion for yourself, for your own judgement. Do not judge yourself for your own judgement. Accept your judgement, recognize it's beauty and necessity, it's perfection. If you do so, beautiful things will happen my brother. You yourself should recognize your own blindness, your fear and suffering. This is why you judge, because you suffer and because you fear. Because you care. And now expand your care. See the suffering, the fear, the pain in your brothers and sisters. Can you see how they are blind, how they are suffering, just like you do? Love to you and all of our brothers and sisters.

Moksha I think most people take Suffering to be any negative experience, including pain. What you are describing is something like second order Suffering, like the fear of pain for example. These things animals can experience too, animals can for example be traumatized and have forms of PTSD. There are many animals who probably do have deeper forms of self reflection, so we should not generalize. Animals however do have forms of ego, just that ours are more complex or different.

I've noticed that most people who are interested in philosophy and who study philosophy are moral objectivists. I would be curious on Leos take for why this is, because it is very strange to me. I cannot really follow the arguments because many times they just look like elaborate labyrinths of mental acrobatis to somehow arrive at the conclusion they are seeking to arrive at. It looks more like a language game than anything else, a lot of it just looks like people are indoctronated into certain schools of thoughts and then make it their jobs to rationalize those positions. What do you think Leo? @Leo Gura

@Leo Gura Who would be some philosophers you would consider worth reading?

It doesn't work for me neither, i just hear it looping.

Yes, this however is different from moral worth. We can view all humans as equal, yet recognize that our duty towards certain individuals is greater than others. My duty to a family member is higher than my duty towards a stranger. However this idea is more of useful in structuring a societies behavior to maximize harmony, it does not really tell us about the worth of each individual being. This is why I think we shouldn't say that pigs are worth less than humans, but rather that our duty towards the pig is different from our duty towards humans. When we talk about decisions that make us choose over one individual than another, then this decision will be made in relationship to extrinsic factors, not intrinsic ones. For example, as you showed, an individuals relationship to you or others. You might for example save an ant over Adolf Hitler, because of the extrinsic factors, not because the subjectivity of Adolf Hitler is worth less than that of the ant or vice verca. Equally you could save your own cat over a stranger (human), because your duty towards your cat is viewed by you higher than the duty towards the stranger and so forth.

Yes but in a survival situation you would eat me too, that doesn't answer whether or not pigs are less individuals than humans. You gave an account that you value one over the other, but not why. Do you think just because someone is born with different DNA they are worth less? People have the intuition that other races are worth less, or are somehow an inferior form of individuals, than their own race. And in a survival context that made complete sense. But this is not the question, the question is how do we justify these positions under rational inquiry. It is precisely because we have deconstructed our irrational beliefs about other individuals that we came to value all races equally.

The question is, how do you arrive at that conclusion? What is the difference between a pig and a human that makes one worth less than the other? An intuitive justification is not sufficient, because otherwise you would have to accept the appeal to intuition that a racist would provide in his stance that some races are less an individual than others. Think this through and apply any difference you find to humans. Peter Singer provided a good argument for this, called Argument from Marginal Cases. This means any trait other than humanity itself will reduce you to a position in which certain groups of humans are considered less worthy of life, or less worthy of being called an individual, than others. This would for example apply to the mentally disabled. Do you actually believe that the mentally disabled are less individuals, or less worthy of life, than other healthy humans, or that these individuals are only as much worth of life as we because of their genetic code? If the trait is humanity, which is basically species, then you are not much different from a racist, who simply chooses race as that which we cares about. Instead of looking at what is different between two beings, look at what you truly care about. Do you really value individuals with higher cognitive abilities more than others, or is it subjectivity itself that you value, and someones capacity to experience well being and suffer?

It is inevitable. What is demanded of the workers is to treat individuals as objects, so you cannot continue to view them as individuals. If the workers did view them as individuals, they would be incapable of doing what they are doing. This should be quite obvious, any empathetic person who would work in a slaughterhouse will either psychologically disintegrate or adapt and start viewing these individuals as objects. And objects you cannot treat badly, they are just objects. There is nothing wrong with kicking or punching an object. It is irrational to complain about the abuse when the entire industry is about killing these individuals. Each workers is killing hundreds of individuals every day, that itself is abuse no matter how you cut it. Imagine it was your job to kill children, hundreds every day. You had a few seconds to slice the throat of each child. What would this do to you? Even if you started out having empathy for these children, who would you be even after a single day of doing this job? This job demands that you have no empathy for these individuals. Can you see how the consumers not only have no empathy for the animals, but also lack even the most basic empathy for these workers who are coerced by our society to do something that goes against their nature? Watch this to get some good insight: Can you see how this is an absurd contradiction: "Slice this pigs throat against it's will, but treat it with respect!"

Yes but I was hoping for a more indepth analysis rather than just this. I mean you could also make a video saying "It's all self bias guys", and it would explain everything too, in this sense.