Life is only an imposition to those who deem it an imposition

No, no, that's not what I mean at all. I'm saying that for something to be an imposition there needs to be a subject imposed upon; negatively affected in some sense. For example, say you're on a diet, and I sneak into your house in the middle of the night and inject extra calories into your food. You eat it, gain weight, and become depressed. You have no knowledge of why you're gaining weight, but it's fair to say that my deviousness is an imposition for you, right?

Or say I drew an offensive picture on your forehead while you were asleep. People throughout the day point and laugh at you and make you feel really insecure. In this scenario, you're not even aware of any change in your appearance or surroundings; yet my actions have, again, been an imposition for you.

Does that make sense?

Someone lives a perfect life, totally free of pain and suffering.

Still an imposition.
Because you didn't ask for it. Simple.

I didn't ask for a million dollars, either. But I'm hardly going to call it an imposition when you give it to me.

Quote from: Pendulate on July 25, 2015, 06:23:03 PM

Quote from: Prehisnake on July 25, 2015, 06:08:43 PM

But again, impositions don't have to negatively affect someone to be impositions. As long as things happen to people without their consent, I would consider it an imposition.

I don't see how that would be a moral issue, though. I really do need an example for this =/

I steal your money and gamble it all away, with the intent of making you a millionaire. It just so happens that I win. I give you all my winnings, and make it clear that I had no idea that I was actually gonna win.

this is an imposition, despite it having a positive outcome
i had no right to do that, but are you gonna complain?...

Well, no, I wouldn't call that an imposition. And I wouldn't call stealing money from someone who is none the wiser is an imposition either.

You can easily make an argument for why it's unethical, just not on the basis of how it impacts the subject. It's the same with killing.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that... an imposition is an imposition, regardless of whether the person acknowledges it or not.

I worded that poorly. Not acknowledged, necessarily -- just that the imposition negatively affects them in some way. Unless you're arguing that the cessation of experience is itself negative, which doesn't bode well with your efilist views.

It's a dangerous line of thought, that followed to it's logical conclusion, could be used as justification for genocide.

Hardly. Genocides have a nasty track record of causing immense suffering.

I'm saying that if you want to defend a categorical proposition, you need to refer to some empirical ends. So, "killing is unethical" because if everyone went around killing each other we'd have some serious problems. It could never be a moral absolute, though, in the sense that "suffering is intrinsically bad" is an absolute.

It doesn't have to negatively impact the subject to be considered an imposition.

It has to be recognized as an imposition by the subject. Unless you can provide some examples showing otherwise...?

Well, dying can be painful (negative). I don't see death (see, non-existence) to be a negative thing at all. But that doesn't mean we get to impose it on others. The end doesn't justify the means.

The pain experienced at death is distinct from death itself, though. And since I'm a strong proponent of objective ethics, I'm pretty skeptical when you need to invoke concepts of "rights" and what we are "allowed" to do when there's no empirical way of verifying them. I can verify the proposition that "causing suffering is unethical", because suffering is an empirical property with intrinsic value. I can't do that with propositions like "killing is wrong" because they're categorical.

Still don't think I've got much to contribute, really =(

Sure, a pessimistic outlook is generally a more rational one. But let's just enjoy things every once in a while, shall we

Concerning your query about eggs, I'd argue that laying hens have it the worst of all.

I don't think the argument that "killing is wrong" has a great deal of merit. I'm more concerned with the suffering inflicted on animals, coupled with the fact that large-scale, capitalist animal agriculture is -- and always will be -- ethically unmanageable. Which means that buying "humane" animal stuffs is still unethical because you're supporting a conglomerate that can't exist without animal suffering.

Well how did this happen

Marijuana isn't toxic, has no detrimental side effects, and is non-habit-forming.

I'd like your thoughts on this video:

What did the Hungarian say before going to bed?

83/88 should be High Distinction, shouldn't it?

Nice job regardless.

I think there's sufficient grounds to ban this guy from Serious.

Anything to say about Vitamin D, calcium, omega-3, iron and zinc?

Are there any foods which will meet your daily requirements? Or is it best to just take supplements?

Firstly bear in mind that deficiencies in these nutrients aren't just vegan problems, and a lot of omnivores are advised to supplement as well. Also, these are guidelines for optimal health; it's not a case of taking a bunch of supplements just to be equally healthy as the average omnivore who doesn't care. So don't feel that you have to meet every recommendation to the letter.

Vitamin D

Bit of a tricky one. It's really only found in fish and eggs, and you'd need to eat a lot of them to meet the RDI, so omnivores are advised to supplement it as well. Vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, so it's a good idea to compliment one with the other. Obviously if you get about 30 minutes of sunlight a day it shouldn't be a problem, but the UK isn't known for its sunniness. I don't take any personally, but it's winter now, so I may have to bite the bullet.

There's two kinds of vitamin D you can take: D2 and D3. D3 is marginally better absorbed than D2, but it comes from sheep's wool. Apparently there is D3 from lichen, but if you're gonna go to the trouble of taking vitamin D, I wouldn't bother; just take D2. Recommended dose is 600 IU (units; the concentration would be on the bottle). Good info on this (the site is managed by one of the RDs I linked earlier).

Calcium

This one's a doozy. The RDA is 1000mg a day and plenty of foods have it. Here's a short list I copied from here:


I don't take calcium supplements, I just get it from the rice milk in my coffee and various other foods. Plus lots of things are fortified with it now.

Omega 3s

Another easy one. A lot of the concern is with getting adequate intakes of EPA and DHA, which are mostly found in fish. Plant foods contain large amounts of ALA which the body then converts to the others. The issue is that it converts to DHA less efficiently and your body might not be that efficient at it in the first place. If you want to err on the side of caution you can supplement. I've been taking these rather lazily for a while now but when the bottle is out I don't think I'll continue with it (it's a big bottle). Here's some good info on it and here's some good sources of ALA. Also, nuts.

Zinc

I haven't concerned myself with this, honestly. Perhaps I should start. I'm just going to link a couple of articles on it; it's found in plenty of foods (NUTS), so apparently it isn't hard to get an adequate intake:

http://www.theveganrd.com/2009/05/getting-enough-zinc-on-vegan-diets.html
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/zinc

Finally, here are the supps I take:

B12 - absolutely essential. About 8 bucks a bottle and I take 2-3 weekly. Actually here's a few quick articles that you should read to figure out how much you'll need:

http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/rec
http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/07/vitamin-b12-supplements-how-much-is-enough.html

Iron - another one to keep on your radar. Plant foods are't exactly low in iron, but it is non-heme iron which isn't absorbed as well. Eating iron with vitamin C increases absorption by about 30%. I'll look for a good recipe for spinach leaves dipped in lemon.

Vitamin C - predictaby. Probably not necessary, but it's insanely cheap -- one bottle lasts me over 6 months and I take more than I need to because they taste good.

Uh, that's it. My diet is pretty average, tbh, but I'm covering the important bases. I'll get a blood test by the end of the year and if there's anything alarming I'll tweak things accordingly.

Props for giving this a go, btw.

Well you can never trust them Himalayans.

What kind of advice would you give to somebody who's mildly interested in trying out veganism?

I'm going to try to avoid making this read like a sales pitch, so...

1. Research, obviously. Not a lot -- just enough to learn the fundamental differences between a vegan and an animal-based diet. Unfortunately veganism is littered with pseudoscience, so it's easy to be bamboozled or just turned off it altogether. These are the two best resources for vegan nutrition on the internet, by far:

www.theveganrd.com
jacknorrisrd.com

The first one in particular is a goldmine of information. Here's one of its introductory articles, but I'd recommend looking through the whole archive; seriously, it's full of useful and, from what I've seen, credible advice.

2. Don't sweat the small stuff. When I initially went vegan I was obsessed with avoiding all animal products at all costs. Which meant laboriously inspecting every product for suspicious ingredients like "preservative 401" of "natural flavours" or "sugar" that may or may not have been processed with animal bone. It was draining. And eventually I realized that most of these ingredients don't have any impact on animal welfare; they're just byproducts that are harvested from the meat and dairy industries. Nobody's killing a cow to filter sugar. Plus it's just not a reasonable way to live or promote the lifestyle to others.

Though I think cosmetics are where you need to be particularly careful, because a lot of them are tested on animals.

3. Make a shopping list. Seriously, the most daunting thing about veganism for me wasn't giving up certain foods, but not knowing how to replace them. My first week or so I was basically confined to the health food section because I thought that was where all the vegan foods were; later I realised that finding vegan food is remarkably easy and shopping became no more difficult than before.

Some of the foods I'd recommend, for both nutritional value and taste, are:

Basics

- Fruit, obviously. Bananas and dates are the greatest things ever produced by nature, and together doubly so
- Rice. I never really cared for the stuff until I got a slow cooker, but it really is a staple food
- Tofu. I know, I know. But seriously, it's the most versatile thing ever, and there's always a way to make it taste good. Cheap too
- Beans.
- Nuts. I adore nuts, and they're full of healthy fats. I'm starting to make my own nut butters too, thought you should know
- Grains, again, obviously. I couldn't live without toast.

Everything else to make veganism not boring

- Milk alternatives. A lot of people like almond, I prefer rice because it doesn't have a particularly distinct taste in my coffee. Coconut milk destroys everything for taste, but it's rather high in fat and low in calcium. Haven't tried Hazelnut and Macadamia milks.

- These babies. You will never crave "real" sausages again, trust me. Very good on pizza.

- You can still eat a lot of junk foods.

- Coconut milk chocolate is better than dairy chocolate, it's not up for debate.

- Coconut milk ice cream is better than dairy ice cream, it's also not up for debate.

- These taste exactly like chicken schnitzels. I can find all of these in generic supermarkets, btw, and they're not locally made, so hopefully you've got them too. Most of Fry's products taste good.

- Daiya Cheese (site appears to be down atm) is the best vegan cheese I've tried (most of them taste like ballsweat). You may have to go to a health food store to find them though, and they aren't cheap, so I don't buy them often.

- Marmite. Like, come on. Good source of B12 too. (Also B12 is the one thing you'll probably need to supplement. You can get it from yeast products and fortified foods, but best not to take any chances. It's not hard to come by -- supermarkets sell it in capsules for dirt cheap.)

- Nutritional Yeast. Also known as Savoury Yeast Flakes. This is the stuff of legend. Add it to literally anything for a cheesy flavour; popcorn, spaghetti, nachos, make a cheese sauce, the possibilities are endless. Also rich in B12.

- Nut butters. Almond butter is quite possibly the greatest thing ever to come from putting almonds in a blender for 20 minutes (perhaps the only thing). It's incredible stuff. Bit pricey though. Peanut butter is cheaper and almost as good.

- Herbs and spices and stuff. This will make all the boring staple foods taste good. Personally I have cumin, and... some mixed herbs and that's it. Powdered onion or something.

- Herbamare is a seasoning that tastes almost exactly like the salt they put on your chips at KFC. And that salt is fucking badass. (Also while these are Amazon links, I can find them in my local supermarkets.)

- Plus Nando's chip salt is vegan and can be found at most retailers.

- Most dark chocolate is vegan. Cocoa butter and cocoa mass are vegan; it's milk solids you've got to watch out for.

- Tried Vege chips for the first time yesterday; really quite good.

- Jokerz Candy bars. Vegan Snickers, and it's bloody good.

- Curry paste. I like curry.

I may come back and update this if I think of more (I'm sure there are more) but for now that seems pretty extensive. Actually it wouldn't be a bad idea to go to an online vegan food store, browse through their products, then look for them later at the supermarket.

4. Cook your own stuff! I don't really do this myself, but I'd like to. So I don't have many tried and tested recommendations, but there's just a ton of good recipes out there for everything imaginable (I made cookie dough with chickpeas a while back -- 7/10; vegan nutella -- 8/10; and I'm going to try and make mars bars soon, if I don't eat all the ingredients first). Oh and I do make the occasional curry.

5. Generally just stay away from other vegans, lol. Well, maybe not -- I haven't met any fellow vegans IRL, but those that I've encountered online tend to run a spectrum of irrational to hostile to just plain bonkers. There's a lot of reasonable ones out there too, but they're kind of hard to find, and attempting to do so might leave a sour taste in your mouth toward veganism as a whole.

Here's a few vegan-oriented blogs I can recommend:

http://veganskeptic.blogspot.com.au/
http://skepticalvegan.com/
http://pythagoreancrank.com/


Bear in mind that I don't keep up with them, I'm just going by what I've read of theirs in the past.

Other than that, I don't really know. I suppose I could direct you to one of the many documentaries showing footage from factory farms, but I'm assuming you're familiar with all that [edit: just read your last comment; what'd you think?] and I haven't watched any of them myself except for 20 minutes of Earthlings before figuring there was no need to endure it when I'm already vegan. I'll do my best to answer any questions you've got, though. Just remember that going vegan is like jumping into a cold pool; the hardest part is the initial plunge. After that it's incredibly easy. Now I'm going to go for a run. Do you know how far I can run fueled by clean, pure veganosity? Really fucking far, I'll tell you that.

The only supplement you need is B12. That's it, and it works out to about 15c a day.

I get the distinct impression that you have done little to no research on this, yet are hinging your argument on vague ideas of what it would be like. I mean I probably had similar ideas before I realised I had no right to hold them without trying it myself. Only then did I realise how completely wrong I was.