Philosophical Vegan Forum

Just watched this. Oh, how I will miss having an intelligent US president who can clearly articulate his views. The whole interview is good but if you don't have time jump to 16.15 when they start talking about food and GMOs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXH5agV7skw

Maher is such a lunatic with his anti-GMO stuff. Lower yields, bullshit.

I agree with him on this though:

Maher wrote:And I would add news gathering. People say get the money out of politics, I think you gotta get it out of the news business first or we're never going to learn anything.

But I don't think he has any idea what he's advocating there. That would take a constitutional amendment to restrict freedom of the press.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Maher is such a lunatic with his anti-GMO stuff. Lower yields, bullshit.

I agree with him on this though:

Maher wrote:And I would add news gathering. People say get the money out of politics, I think you gotta get it out of the news business first or we're never going to learn anything.

But I don't think he has any idea what he's advocating there. That would take a constitutional amendment to restrict freedom of the press.

Bill Maher also completely supports getting money out of politics. According to him, his main issues are that and climate change.

EquALLity wrote: Bill Maher also completely supports getting money out of politics. According to him, his main issues are that and climate change.

A broken clock is right twice a day.
Plus he's totally unfunny.

RedAppleGP wrote:

EquALLity wrote: Bill Maher also completely supports getting money out of politics. According to him, his main issues are that and climate change.

A broken clock is right twice a day.
Plus he's totally unfunny.

Please don't act like you know anything about money in politics.

EquALLity wrote: Please don't act like you know anything about money in politics.

Oh, and like you do?
Brimstone offered good reasons as to why money should stay out of politics. I still hold no real opinion because I have to study and look into it (which I have zero interest in doing), so I look at both sides and see which side has the better arguments.

I suggest you start doing the same. Not just on this issue.

EquALLity wrote: Bill Maher also completely supports getting money out of politics. According to him, his main issues are that and climate change.

Well, I don't agree with the "money in politics" thing being a problem, I think it's a bogeyman, and that real corruption is very rare.

I'm more concerned about money in media, because the news is reluctant to report negative stories about (for example) meat, fast food, etc. when they're being sponsored by these companies who will pull their commercials if they run stories like that.
Unlike in politics, this is 100% legal (these are transparent deals "hey stop that or we'll pull our ads"), and it's also better studied and demonstrated. AND possibly even more importantly, the news is incentivized to maximize ratings with fear mongering and sensationalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology, but other common forms of bias include:

Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers.
Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media.
Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.
Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.
Concision bias, a tendency to report views that can be summarized succinctly, crowding out more unconventional views that take time to explain.
[...]
Media bias in the United States occurs when the media in the United States systematically emphasizes one particular point of view in a way that contravenes the standards of professional journalism. Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of liberal bias, conservative bias, mainstream bias, and corporate bias. To combat this, a variety of watchdog groups that attempt to find the facts behind both biased reporting and unfounded claims of bias [4][5] have been founded. Research about media bias is now a subject of systematic scholarship in a variety of disciplines.

I want to go after the things that have solid evidence behind them, and that there's not a complex set of drawbacks and benefits to navigate.
E.g. I think political contribution stabilizes politics and benefits more centrist politicians, and socially liberal ideas, overall converging on promoting positive-sum games. Eliminating that could destabilize the political system, particularly if we don't take on media bias first and eliminate inaccurate reporting and fear mongering based politics.

Maher also mentioned subsidies, I think, and I agree with him on that too with respect to animal agriculture.

I assume he's anti-nuclear, though, so to whatever respect he acknowledges global warming as a problem, he's probably opposed to any viable solution.

RedAppleGP wrote:

EquALLity wrote: Please don't act like you know anything about money in politics.

Oh, and like you do?
Brimstone offered good reasons as to why money should stay out of politics. I still hold no real opinion because I have to study and look into it (which I have zero interest in doing), so I look at both sides and see which side has the better arguments.

I suggest you start doing the same. Not just on this issue.

Um, yes. I actually take the time to learn about things before I talk about them.

You don't even know brimstoneSalad's position. Unbelievable. Clearly you don't pay attention to arguments, you just believe whatever you think he believes. I was the one saying get money out of politics, he doesn't think it matters.

EquALLity wrote: Um, yes. I actually take the time to learn about things before I talk about them.

Oh, give me a fucking break. If you want, I can post a few examples where you make assertions without evidence or rather you misunderstanding how something works.

EquALLity wrote:You don't even know brimstoneSalad's position. Unbelievable. Clearly you don't pay attention to arguments, you just believe whatever you think he believes. I was the one saying get money out of politics, he doesn't think it matters.

Huh? I do remember one time that brim says that money should stay out.
*goes back and checks*
Ok, apparently my memory doesn't serve me well. You got me on this one. I think it was in a post where brim talks about people complaining about money in politics. I did a google search for the arguments for and against it, and mistakes were made. I lied about brim providing arguments.
I'll be honest, I do barely read anything that isn't directed at me unless I'm really interested.
I'll admit that's kinda embarrassing.

Anyway
I have stated many, many times that i don't believe everything that brim says, but when I receive good arguments, I tend to lean to one side. I have already stated why I don't form my own opinions.

RedAppleGP wrote: I'll be honest, I do barely read anything that isn't directed at me unless I'm really interested.
I'll admit that's kinda embarrassing.

You should try to read more of my arguments.

I'll summarize:

• Deontology is philosophically illegitimate, "fair"and "justice" do not necessarily have any clear meaning or carry innate moral weight outside that dogma. Consequentialism is the only appropriate way to approach ethics.
• Safe spaces and trigger warnings hurt the people they're trying to protect and harmfully impinge on free speech without cause, they create echo chambers and lead to the current SJW scourge which is damaging academics and played a large hand in getting Trump elected (as a reaction against it) among young independents.
• Terrorism is a threat like lightning and sharks. It's scary, but people need to put things into perspective. Yes it has to do with fundamentalist Islam, but no pointing the finger and legitimizing their perspectives probably won't help.
• Welfare needs to take into account social attitudes and focus on the ultimate cause of social problems, which is poor money management, poor education/lack of self investment, and a weak sense of cause and effect which are environmental and acquired in childhood. We need practical educational reform and job programs. Raising the minimum wage is one of the worst things we could do, but we do need universal healthcare, and possibly even childcare and other social programs which help.
• Nuclear power is good, lower carbon, and less dangerous than solar and wind. Resources will last indefinitely, and spent fuel is not a serious problem because it is fuel itself for breeders. Meltdowns are not a substantial public health and safety risk even when they do occur.
• Current GMO crops are not dangerous, and contribute disease resistance which results in more reliable high yields, and in general they reduce land use and other inputs. Beyond that, genetic engineering technology has world saving potential, like low methane rice, or milk made by yeast without cows.
• There's no evidence of widespread corruption from "money in politics", it may do more good than harm or more harm than good, we don't know so we should leave it alone unless and until we have more evidence of its effects with adequate controls. Let's not waste time on things we don't have evidence for.
• Money in news reporting has more evidence, and is more clearly harmful. This is a better use of our time and resources.
• Animal agriculture subsidies and many other forms of pork barrel spending should absolutely be eliminated (money FROM the government to buy votes is a much more explicit problem than campaign contributions, and it causes demonstrable harm).
• We should eliminate the electoral college system and gerrymandering, these give fundamentalists disproportionate power over politics, and their ideology is hostile to environmentalism and world peace.

Does that cover pretty much everything?