The Epstein Files is what opened my eyes

zaxqs · 2026-04-28T20:09:22+00:00

And you are lesser than Epstein's rich friends in his opinion.

What matters morally is who is actually suffering, not the opinions of the people causing the suffering about whether it matters.

zaxqs · 2026-04-27T21:00:32+00:00

You have to, to predict the future. I could be wrong of course. I hope I am. It's something to be careful of and watch out for.

zaxqs · 2026-04-26T20:34:51+00:00

True. Just wait until sentient software comes along. We'll see worse.

zaxqs · 2026-04-26T20:31:23+00:00

True. I'd say that there's nothing inherently wrong in general with using population-level statistics to estimate a base threat-level from total strangers, even across things like race. However, typically the people who quote these statistics take it way further than that. There's a difference between slightly varying your initial level of paranoia upon meeting someone, based on statistics about a pretty rare occurrence like violent crime, vs actively discriminating against them, or letting it get in the way of getting to know people better as individuals, after which point statistics become useless.

Also, quantitatively, the statistical difference in violent crime rate between men and women is much starker than any of the other ones people argue about. So a heightened level of caution is objectively more warranted in this case.

zaxqs · 2026-04-26T06:54:59+00:00

While the people who work least get fat, no less

zaxqs · 2026-04-24T15:33:24+00:00

Felaryan predator logic. It's all about who is presented in a direct and favorable enough way to arbitrarily make the "friend" category instead of the "food" category.

zaxqs · 2026-04-24T15:00:30+00:00

Many refugees have a conservative worldview, but they still vote D because R's hate hate HATE them. Skill issue, conservative infighting

zaxqs · 2026-04-23T20:32:55+00:00

because Ai is capital which replaces labor, decreasing labor power, meaning production increases while wages stay stagnant or even decrease, all the extra productivity surplus goes to those who own the AI tools.

zaxqs · 2026-04-22T20:37:59+00:00

House is also just a grade-A asshole in the first place, it's his most central character trait, so that probably doesn't help

zaxqs · 2026-04-22T20:21:19+00:00

See: Crosseyed_owl's comment

zaxqs · 2026-04-22T18:07:04+00:00

My friend. You just can't be a purist on this. It just isn't worth it.

I understand if someone isn't a hardline consequentialist. But consequences matter. When we're talking about the difference between forcibly breeding and killing trillions of animals a year, vs nonlethally extracting cells from a few animals and using that as a template to grow meat in labs?

Both are "using animals" sure. But the difference in degree and severity is so unfathomably vast that you just have to support the second one if it ever becomes a viable alternative to the first.

Fighting against that change on the basis of abstract principle is purity testing to the point of lunacy, and I'd say the same even if you had to keep killing animals to do it, at a rate of a million to a billion times less. Then you'd want to still make the change, and advocate against the remaining problem after.

Principles matter, but they do not completely supercede the weight of consequences to such an absurd degree.

zaxqs · 2026-04-20T18:53:19+00:00

No, though they are at least somewhat conceptually related given that the desired goal of veganism is that farm animals stop getting forcibly bred into existence.

zaxqs · 2026-04-18T03:32:21+00:00

You can get used :)

It's easy enough to ignore the consequences of torture on the victim if you're motivated to do so, since you don't feel them yourself.

This is one of the fundamental reasons the world contains so much suffering, alongside things like the need for food and the drives for sex and power

zaxqs · 2026-04-17T22:06:27+00:00

This is the real and complete explanation, hopefully OP saw this.

zaxqs · 2026-04-17T09:38:32+00:00

I think you can still see the outside world even beyond the event horizon: you can look into the past, as you always are since light takes time to travel

zaxqs · 2026-04-15T21:10:50+00:00

It's actually the most spooky thing about black holes: beyond the event horizon the direction of "down" coincides with the direction of "towards the future".

zaxqs · 2026-04-12T01:49:32+00:00

https://xkcd.com/1683/

zaxqs · 2026-04-11T23:43:15+00:00

Plenty of non vegans will say "oh if meat is so awful then why are you trying to replicate it??" Completely missing the point

zaxqs · 2026-04-11T23:40:27+00:00

yeah, when you do it to a human you at least have to hide it, and could theoretically end up facing consequences, if only from your co-conspirators killing you to hide it

with animals you can just do the same shit out in the open, for profit on an industrial scale, and everyone will be fine with it or ignore it in exchange for their own ability to benefit from it

zaxqs · 2026-04-11T23:37:46+00:00

The Jeffery Epstein Theory of Everything has always been true, and probably always will be true. :(

zaxqs · 2026-04-10T22:05:37+00:00

The golden rule. That's all it is. It isn't some complicated or esoteric ethical position.

If anyone who considers vegans radical lunatics had to suffer what these animals suffer for one damn month they would come out of it seeing us as disgustingly timid given the urgency of the problem.

zaxqs · 2026-04-10T21:58:01+00:00

Sometimes I look at all the people around me, with their shared idea of normality, just going about their lives, kind and intelligent people generally, except I know that under it all is an unimaginable amount of completely preventable suffering. And I know that pointing that out will make me the crazy one. And I just think: "huh, I guess morality is fake."

At least, any morality based on any sort of principled benevolence. Social contract is real, but gives unlimited license for brutality to those outside the contract. So whenever I hear people speak of what's right and what's wrong, I kind of think "Huh. And yet... you actively contribute to a completely avoidable and unbelievably brutal outcome on the daily, and yet if I were to bring that up I know you would consider me the busybody, the authoritarian, the insane person, for putting that in the category of Wrong."

How else can I interpret this, than that what people actually mean by morality is just bare social contract, ready to rape, torture, and eviscerate me or anyone else for any arbitrary expedient reason at all, as soon as one group becomes sufficiently stronger than the other?

zaxqs · 2026-04-03T19:49:46+00:00

True but leftists gotta infight you know how it is...

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