TychoCelchuuu

What do you mean by "weird?" I think people finding anti-meat arguments unconvincing and feeling like they don't need to change their behavior is by far the norm at this point in history.

My location definitely makes produce cheaper - South California is a nice place to live! - but you can eat cheaply as a vegan anywhere you can buy beans, rice, fruits, and vegetables for less than meat, cheese, dairy, and eggs, which is basically everywhere in America, as far as I know. I definitely don't assume that my body and metabolism are representative of the entirety of all people in this thread. I eat a massive amount of food every day but I never gain any weight. I am six feet tall and I weigh 127 pounds. The most I have ever weighed is 128 pounds. I have been like this since I was a teenager, and back then I ate tons of meat, dairy, eggs, etc. in an effort to gain weight. No dice - my dad was like this too when he was a teenager and in his 20s. So I definitely don't think I'm some sort of archetype. I do think that unless something is very fucked up about your metabolism or you have some special health problem, you can surely be a healthy vegan if I can manage it with my metabolism. I'm not just talking out of my ass here. And it's not like I'm the only vegan in the world. I think we obviously can progress beyond anecdote - as far as anyone knows, a vegan diet done right is at least as healthy (and for some people, potentially even more healthy!) than a carnivorous diet. This isn't just some wacky theory I thought up myself in my cave. There are vegans all over the world! We've yet to die! This thread on Something Awful is a great place to start, especially all of dino's posts. This cookbook is also another great place to start. In general, basic tips for eating cheaply include: eat lots of rice and beans, buy vegetables and fruits that are on sale, shop at ethnic markets, be vegan (my food expenditures dropped drastically once I stopped eating cheese - that shit's expensive!), and look to cultures where people have had to feed themselves cheaply for hundreds/thousands of years, like all over India, much of Africa, etc. These cuisines often have meals that are very cheap to make because they haven't had much of a choice. I'm also not sure quite how helpful this will be, since it's somewhat specific to me, but I once posted a spreadsheet online of my food purchases: there are two tabs (in the bottom left). The first tab is nine months worth of food, averaging $47 per month, and the second tab is a year's worth of food. It's not a perfect way to see how this works because you don't get to see what I cooked and because when I'm only cooking for myself I tolerate a more boring diet than I would cook if I were feeding other people, but it might help you get a basic idea for what kind of things to go shopping for. Definitely a huge part of eating cheaply, whether it's vegan/vegetarian or just cheaply as a carnivore, is learning how to make what you call "poor quality food" taste good. Kidney beans are not "poor quality food," and in fact they're probably a lot better in terms of "how good can a kidney bean get" compared to the sort of meat you'd buy if you buy cheap meat. Moreover, a 20c tin of kidney beans is not "the lowest end" - canned beans are expensive (relatively). Dry beans are cheap. If you want to eat cheaply, you want to buy dry beans and cook them, rather than buy cans of things. Buying dry beans in bulk turns out to be pennies on the dollar compared to cans, depending on where you buy your stuff. As you point out, vegetarian sausages/veggie mince are pretty awful, cost-wise (I also think they taste like shit, but your mileage will vary). The way to eat cheaply is to cook cheap food, not to buy vegetarian versions of expensive food, which is typically even MORE expensive.

I don't understand how eating animals serves a "real function" that human sacrifice doesn't. I mean, sure, it tastes better (I assume...) but either way it's unnecessarily killing something for no reason other than "eh I think my life would be better if I killed this thing." If you don't want to talk about human sacrifice you're welcome to offer another example where someone is killing human beings when they have the option not to. The point that I'm trying to make is "we can't judge other people for killing non-human animals" makes as much sense to me as "we can't judge other people for killing humans." Unless you can explain to me what the relevant difference between humans and non-human animals is, I'm up in the air as to why you think one thing is something that we ought not to judge others for but the other thing is something that it's totally find to judge others for. To maybe make a bit more progress on the "what's the relevant difference" question (since you don't like the Socratic "ask questions" method), this article would be a good one to read. It's one of the classic pieces of philosophy addressing this very issue. If you're sensible about it, being vegan can be much cheaper than eating meat. I feed myself healthily and heartily (I eat a LOT of food) on $2 a day.

Because some people are bad at feeding themselves? I know people who eat everything, meat included, who have gotten scurvy, iron deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, etc. Some people just aren't good food eaters. Meanwhile I've been a vegan since forever and I'm perfectly healthy. Would you say the same thing about human sacrifice?

The map zooming around as all the markers show up made me think my browser was messing up.

Do you feel similar about killing human beings, or do you think there can be reasons to enforce "one idea of morality" to prevent, for instance, people from killing other human beings? I'm vegan, other people in this thread are vegan, I can assure you it's possible...

I feel the same way, except instead of finding the moral high horse vegans/vegetarians are on surreal, I find the moral high horse ridden by people who pull your line of argumentation to be pretty surreal. I mean, it's one thing to find "I'm vegan because I don't think it's okay to kill animals for food" weird because it ignores the fact that lots of food production hurts lots of things, even if it's vegetable production, but I find "I'm not vegan because horrible stuff happens with all food" weird because it ignores the fact that horrible stuff happens outside the realm of food production too. All the rare earth metals in your cell phone and your other electronics, your clothes, the gas in your car, everything else... I mean it's not like this is all morally unproblematic and food production is the only unfortunate morass. Getting wigged out by vegans who think they're one up on everyone else when in fact their "one up" is very small seems to me no more or less sensible than getting wigged out by people who say "almost all food production is evil" because production of all sorts of stuff is evil. I mean, yes, if you want to say "there are problems larger than what happens to non-human animals in food production when people eat meat rather than just vegan food," then yes, you're correct. I don't think any sensible vegan has ever disputed this. I'm a vegan and I certainly wouldn't dispute it. But that's not really the point. There are problems larger than what happens in food production when people eat food rather than starve to death! They're the problems of global capitalism with respect to the production of almost everything. Totally true! But I take it that when I point this out, you're not about to withdraw your point about how almost all food production has moral issues. And if you're not going to withdraw your point, I don't see why vegans ought to withdraw our point. Yes, it's true, there are problems in the world aside from the torture we inflict on animals on a massive scale for no reason other than that we'd rather eat a hamburger for lunch than a vegan dal. No shit! But that's not really an answer to the question "is it okay to kill and eat non-human animals for food, especially when it's not necessary for survival?" Because no matter HOW evil carrots are, the answer to the meat question seems to me worth asking just like the answer to the "is all food evil" question is worth asking even though products other than food face ethical issues as well.

The Limits of Control is one of my favorite movies but I wouldn't fault anyone if it makes them want to crawl out of their skin after 10 minutes, nor would I fault them if the feeling that they want to crawl out of their skin doubles every subsequent 10 minutes. Jarmusch films are always really great about addressing, subtly rather than head-on, the weird blurry line between plausible fiction and implausible fiction, to the extent that the line exists, and so on. It's sort of like t hey get at the same thing you get at when you break the 4th wall, but without breaking the fourth wall and more specifically without resorting to reality, by which I mean the movie never links up to the actual world any more than any other film does. It just revolves around the issue. It helps that I find Isaach De Bankolé, the guy who stars in the movie, to be a fascinating guy to watch even when he's just walking around. Not everyone can pull that off and I'd imagine he's not everyone's cup of tea.

porp porp porpentine! http://www.patreon.com/porpentine

Finished Transistor a few days ago, in one long sitting. Tremendous game. I combat sometimes felt a little mushy - it was either too hard because things were too frantic and I didn't have enough time to execute complicated plans, or it was a bit too easy. Maybe I should have played around with the things that make it harder more until I found the right balance, but whatever. The game is absolutely gorgeous in every way, and I love the story and the characters. I also appreciate that it wasn't super long.

After a wee bit of reflection I've decided it's hard to make my mind up but I like this song:

If you're interested in what listeners of the best radio station ever liked this year, check out the results of their poll for top album of the year.

I liked Remember Me a fair amount. The design was really interesting and the story was goofy in a fun way. I haven't been paying attention to this game at all because it seems so story-focused that I want to go in blind.

Probably The Sopranos, although I've never seen it. Ditto for The Wire and Treme. Of the TV I have watched, none of it is "must see" in the sense that I'd recommend it to anyone without reservations, the way a ton of books are "must read" and the way a lot of movies are "must see." I haven't watched a ton of TV, so that's probably my fault as much as it is the TV's fault. There's stuff I really, really, really like (Band of Brothers, Terriers, Firefly, Danger 5, Police Squad, Arrested Development) but none of that is "must see," I would say. Someone can totally get by in life without seeing any of those series.

SJW occupies all comics and no books. I guess these people have: 1) Never read books. 2) Never read any "SJW" criticism of comic book superhero costumes and so on. What does "FTC" stand for?

im starting to think these gamergates# folks dont really have it all together

That was really cool.

Looks dope!

Fun fact: Remo did the music for the video too!

But, like, I thought that was a good reply. I was one of those people saying "that's really problematic" (you can go check the Far Cry 4 thread!) and I pretty much shut up when I learned he was Asian. Why is "he's not ACTUALLY Asian, it's a bunch of white dudes in Montreal who made him that!" a good reply, but "she's not ACTUALLY lesbian, it's a bunch of straight people in Portland who made her that" not a good reply? edit: just went back and checked, I actually complained on ANOTHER forum. Sorry.

I guess I just don't know enough about how people from the Himalayas look vs. how white people look to be able to make the judgment that Pagan Min is way more white than he ought to be. I have a sort of mild face-blindness (I've introduced myself to people I've known for months because I didn't recognize them) so I tend to be pretty awful at judging ethnicity beyond simple things like "are you obviously black," plus I don't think I know a lot of people from the Himalayas, so I was just assuming that Pagan wasn't just, like, an obviously white guy who is ostensibly actually Asian. I suppose I'll take everyone's word that this guy is obviously white enough that it's an issue. (I'm also not sure Dumbledore is a very good example of this - I think it's perfectly fine to have a gay person whose sexuality doesn't come up in the story. I wouldn't call it a good example of including LGBT characters, because that doesn't really count if nobody even knew, but I wouldn't say that creators only have two options: straight white men, or LGBT minorities who make a big deal about how they aren't straight white men. A better example would maybe be something like how The Hunger Games has a diverse cast of people but somehow racism is gone, so inexplicably nobody ever faces any prejudice or whatever for the color of their skin.)

I definitely didn't understand Sean's point at all either. Nothing about Pagan Min being a video game character or an invented character or whatever seems relevant to whether he's Asian or not. Remo points out that he's Himalayan, even though he has the "frosty tips," and Danielle talks about how she accidentally put him on a list of white bros in games, and someone corrected her, saying "actually, he's from the region," and Nick responds "but he's not real." But what the fuck does that mean? If I say "we need more LGBT characters in video games" and someone says "Gone Home is a good example!" and I say "but she's not real" I take it their response would be "uh... right... so?"

Agreed: http://www.objectivegamereviews.com/objective-game-reviews-gamergate/

That looks like it could be a screenshot from the game, what with all the wacky future technology and so forth.