I don't have all the links I had saved on reddit anymore so I'm trying to get ahead of the next struggle session and I think it would be beneficial for everybody if we planned it out ahead of time. We should at least figure out what it will be about and when it should start. Any ideas? I was thinking we should do something a little bit different than the usual.
Your name looks familiar. Are you on the fediverse? I think I know you.
Or we could have a shitty ufc match where its all just hugging after one of them becomes convinced they're ahead on points.
They were one of the better mods and definitely one of the mods who handled being mod emeritus quite well. It would be dope if larrikin got modded here if possible and willing.
I'm like 99% sure the username was larrikin99 and they were one of the mods the admins purged around the time of the quarantine.
I think we're doing China. But everyone's being really reasonable about it.
I'd like to do Market Socialism at some point.
If we're doing the market socialism struggle sesh, I stand with Tito gang!
It's exhausting arguing about Tito with fascists. You have to really yell to be heard all the down in those coal mines.
Everyone stands with the Tito gang, even the hardline pro-Stalinists and the weird Shadow Price command economy guys.
That's what I liked about the sub. Some feeling of left unity at last, with occasional disagreements among reasonable people. No schisms. At least not until the falgsc 1000 year reich has been eastablished and consolidated.
Ooh, I'll address the environmental argument:
Fossils fuels have a much larger effect on the environment to the point where non fossil fuel greenhouse gases from animal agriculture are an afterthought. On top of that, individual action with regards to the climate is useless.
Here's Kurtis Baute going over his carbon footprint as much as he does to make his footprint extremely low (including veganism) is basically cancelled out by one person's private flights, and he recognizes as much. And that's still not even getting into the system as a whole.
The first one is flat wrong. Non CO2 animal ag emissions are the 18% figure at best. No way in hell are they 50 fucking percent.
Ok, let's look at the EPA source. 76% of ghg emissions are CO2, 65pp of which are from "fossil fuels and industrial processes", only 16% come from Methane. If animal ag truly made up 51% of ghg emissions, most of that would be from fossil fuels.
Then scroll down. 24% of emissions are from "Ag, Forestry, and other land use", which includes animal ag, plant ag, forestry, and more. So animal ag only actually makes up <24% of ghg emissions.
The image lists it as a source without actually using it as a source...
It is true that large-scale societal changes rarely happen as a result of one person’s efforts. Rather, these changes happen when a number of people begin to live in alignment with their shared values.
That's not true. Changes happen at a systemic level.
Not right does not necessarily equal wrong. Insisting that everyone should be vegan is the thing that's wrong.
Brb killing a living being for literally no reason.
This kind of language is rooted in the idea that anyone not being vegan is bad.
No response to the EPA thing? That's the issue where I actually care and would be potentially willing to accept changes based on.
Brb killing a living being for literally no reason. The vast majority of people do not need to eat small game, or any meat, in modern day society.
But the difference is animals can suffer and are actually aware they are alive
I have a lot of respect for Jainism, ahimsa is badass.
However if you seriously want to argue that a completely thoughtless chemical response to stimuli in a lifeform with no nerves or nervous system, nevermind a brain, is the same as suffering from animals with actual nervous systems then you must be arguing in bad faith (or you're joking in which case sorry for the rant lol)
ehh keep in mind, the Jains live the way they do because of their relative class/caste position. they literally hire servants to sweep the road in front of them so they don't accidentally step on bugs. without the labor of people who do kill, their philosophy would be much harder to put into practice.
a version of the same that also barred exploitation? that would be interesting but possibly also bar you from cultivating food to eat.
That's a good point to be fair, I guess that's something they had no concept of when they were thinking of that stuff, although I guess a rotting body does also support a lot of life in the bacteria that eat it, which I guess some of which would be the bactiera that are already on/in you?
With regards to a nervous system, it isn't inherently better however for the argument of veganism it is what allows suffering to occur, according to all the science we know to date. Killing things without nervous systems that are (probably) incapable of suffering will reduce the amount of suffering in the world when compared to killing things that can suffer.
Even if plants did suffer, eating them over animals would still reduce total suffering because 90% of energy is wasted as you move up every trophic level. And so by us eating plants directly, rather than us eating animals that eat plants, we actually eat fewer plants anyway.
Not to get too broad but you're also working from the assumption that all suffering is bad, which seems obvious in normal conversation, but needs to be supported in order to be used as a basis for your ethical model.
If, let's say (Ben Shapeeno style), that some suffering is either good or necessary, you would need to give a reason as to why eating animals is ethically wrong other than simple suffering avoidance.
Eh, I've read a bit on metaethics and without using something as god as authority it either ends up treating ethical statements as subjective fiction or postulating "self-evident" axioms like "suffering is bad".
ends up as ... postulating “self-evident” axioms like “suffering is bad”.
Yes.
I mean, I agree. I'm just pointing out that "prove to me that suffering is bad" doesn't end up being a productive "facts and logic" conversation even among philosophers.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you need to defend that claim.
Just that if you had a choice, you wouldn’t do it.
For what reason? They aren't people, the same morality doesn't apply.
Basically, yeah. Though "sapient" is probably the better term to use than "human".
It's arbitrary, and idc that it is. We should probably leave dolphins alone, since they are on the line, but cows, pigs, chickens, nope.
somehow the animals that are already factory farmed don’t aren’t worth caring about. Pretty convenient, right?
Almost like people before us have had a chance to think about the sapience of animals for a long time, and have decided which are ok to farm. And I don't disagree with the choices they've made.
You aren’t convincing anybody but yourself that there’s good reason to not extend compassion for animals.
I'm not trying to, I'm saying the "compassion" argument is bullshit because I think it's bullshit. I care much more about the environmental argument, which is why I made a post with more effort about it as compared to the offhand comment I originally made for this thread.
I didn't say culture or tradition. I said the ethics have been decided by people before us, and that I don't disagree with those ethics. I recognize that existing ethics that I disagree with need to be changed. But this is not one I disagree with.
That's why "conveniently" the animals being factory farmed are the ones that are ok to farm.
Still waiting on a response about the EPA source. Like I said, I don't actually care about the ethical argument.
None of this makes animals sapient. No shit they have some level of conscious. You have to decide a cutoff somewhere, we disagree as to where that is.
Bacon is way overrated it's legit just sodium, no complex flavors or anything besides flavors that are added to it. Just like lick salt or something lmao
This is an explicitly pro-ccp site. Unless you mean a struggle session about how awesome china is
lmao the upvotes/downvotes. I don't think that struggle session has finished yet.
Judging by recent stuff on the discord, I think we’re overdue for one on Chasers.
Some bullshit about QuillQuote supposedly making people "uncomfortable".
Let's get that one Reddit Mod in here so he can defend child porn some more.
No, that struggle session is just depressing. Crazy how many people still eat up the CIA line on that one.
If anyone still isn't clear on this, read North Korea: Another Country. It's by a lib U Chicago professor and was written in 2004 for context. The guy is a Korean history expert, and makes it clear that as much as he dislikes the DPRK, they have never been an unjustified aggressor or a threat, or much of anything that they are depicted as in the media (which takes some truths and makes them sound MUCH worse than they are while stripping it all of the context of ROK and USA aggression over the past 70 years.
The DPRK, being an existing state, DOEs indeed have issues, but when it comes down to it at the end of the day the only really remarkable things about them are that they've successfully resisted Western aggression, and they have a kinda weird culture that's frozen in the 1950s.
If Park Chung-Hee wasn't a leader of an anti-communist state leftists would stan him.
The political compass, political compass memes, and how shit the whole thing is.
Find myself often going back to this video which sums this up so perfectly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k
This is the only correct political compass (100-dimensional political model) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuopBeaUN24
No disrespect to Bryan and Mike but TLOK's message can be so liberal that it hurts. Never got that feeling from ATLA.
The message of overcoming trauma and accepting responsibility for your actions? TLA's message is literally "even imperialist dictators with superpowers actively committing genocide shouldn't be killed".
I mean just because Aang was staying true to his pacifist roots doesn't mean that the show universe or its characters wholly agreed with him. That part of the show was less "defeating fascism through the power of friendship" and more Aang confronting the cognitive dissonance of his wishes to remain a pacifist despite knowing that killing Ozai was the right thing to do, which even the show acknowledges is dumb and frustrating in the face of defeating fascism. Not only did the entire Gaang, including Zuko, think the firelord should die (despite their appreciation for pacifistic intention) but Avatar Kyoshi straight up tells Aang to gank Ozai when he was looking for guidance on the Lion Turtle.
Maybe my nostalgia for the show and personal bias might be getting in the way but remember that Aang is 12 years old, and a 12 year old being morally complex with panic and doubt about being told he has to murder someone doesn't mean the show itself is awash in liberal bullshit IMO.
Yeah, I don't necessarily think TLA is ultra liberal or anything. But I don't see how LoK is more liberal, which is the claim here.
Well LOK is more explicit and pointed in its political issues, and specifically I find that having Zaheer and the Red Lotus be anarchists who just want chaos for the sake of chaos (I think they even go so far as to say that "chaos should be the natural order of things") is a pretty ridiculous straw man of Anarchism as an ideology that serves a liberal agenda– the idea that "Yeah ok maybe our leaders might be kinda bad but at least you don't have to live in complete lawlessness! At least we have rules!"
I also think that the show is just a liiiiittle bit too cozy with cops/law enforcement and capitalism in general. Lin Beifong is a cop (extremely funny considering Toph's origins, which is also funny because she became a fuckin police chief too), Mako is a detective, Asami is literally an industrial capitalist who inherited a fortune and whose father was only bad because he worked with Da Bad Guys™ and not because he's, you know... Super exploitative in his practices or anything. It seems like the only thing they're kind of right on in this regard is that Kuvira, who is a psycho power tripping cop, attempts to become a fascist dictator and Bolin naively joins her conquest thinking that she's just "uniting the Earth Kingdom". That depiction of a quick descent into fascism from unchecked authority is pretty good, but even then deigns to discuss why that might happen and just criticizes the fact that it happened at all instead.
With that being said I think you're totally right that the show does do a really good job at exploring trauma and personal responsibility. There's definitely a lot that LOK gets right and on a more personal and individual level it's way more open about that sort of thing than ATLA ever was. However it's tough to reconcile just how stupid some of the show's political angles can be when the show is largely about politics in a new age.
excuse LoK for actually having villains with dimensions and actually redeemable qualities that the antanogist learns from too!
i am sorry but it doesnt get more liberal than "i refuse to kill firelord"
i dont get how equalists stand for communists when their leader is a bender and they are funded by a corporate overlord and its all a ploy because of Amons daddy issues which makes him believe that bending is evil.
Yeah, but it all got deleted cause I didn't want to use the same account name as reddit so I made a new account. It was a pretty good little struggle session, tbh.
Uncritical support for Zaheer and his crusade to kill all politicians.
What if we brought back old school struggle sessions and tar and feather problematics while reading their browser history out loud in public?
I'm always up for a good Rojava struggle session. Always fun watching my ML comrades split so hard you'd think Khrushchev just became premier
