SimonF

I'm trying to understand the concept of privilege. It has the heavy odour of cultural marxism, but I don't doubt that privilege exists. What are we to make of it? My post was triggered by reading this http://tacit.livejournal.com/578925.html: Part 0: Privilege: What is it?

In that case why bring out rape in the first place? If you define coercion (lack of consent) as immoral, then anarchists might be the most consistent (not hypocritical) I might agree, but there is no reason to showcase rape. I mention rape because of the large amount of publicity it gets, promoted by feminists many of whom are statists. One either approves of using coercion or not, yes? One cannot simultaneously hold to a principle and it's opposite without being a hypocrit. The state backs it's "laws" ultimately by guns and the death, which is a worse moral offence than rape IMO.

but it's not the sex act that makes rape wrong, people even pay for rough and even rapy sex, it's the lack of consent that makes rape wrong I suppose though the very direct and person nature of rape is what makes it so thoroughly obnoxious

has Stef done anything on the famine issue? http://raniakhalek.com/2011/09/11/food-emergency-how-the-world-bank-and-imf-have-made-african-famine-inevitable/

It seems to me that as the fascistic state collapses under its economic fallacies and most people get poorer, they swing over to Marxian economic fallacies like this instead. Having said that I do think there are legitimate reasons to require the banks and financial elites to return a lot of the wealth that they and the state have plundered together.

a familiar ideology... [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqXXO0GGNRI]

I think nature needs defining. I define it as those processes that are a result of the action of energy upon matter (think weather, sunshine etc.) and of the biological process of life controlled by evolution. These natural actions do not produce any technology. Markets however are a unique phenomena of human intellect. Only humans have developed technology. Prior to the evolution of human intelllect everything was in a state of nature. I think there are important distinctions to be made. So it's not possible to have a free market provide dispute resolution services for disputes over property rights?

It's a disgusting shaming tactic and minimizing of others interests over ones own. It has the stink of hypocrisy all over it.

If rape is simply 1 example of a power-over relationship, and statism another, then are we anarchists the only critics of rape who are not hypocrits?

The data is insufficient to draw any conclusions.

Turning citizens informant on each other, it's like a wiff of the German Democratic Republic.

I had a friend who used to run a raw food/fasting retreat in Boston. He used to help 300 pound guys lose weight with a 100% raw food diet.These men where full time eaters, waking at 5am and eating through to midnight, emptying a full fridge of fruit and veg daily. On raw food they still lost weight because the food energy available is lower per pound of food. So you can have a full belly with raw food and still not be having excess calories. I don't dispute the psychological influence, but eating the right foods has a huge impact on weight management.

It's been known for some years that only herbivorous species suffer from atherosclerois when they consume too much fat or cholesterol. The scientific evidence that these substances are dangerous for humans to consume is immense. There are numerous lifestyle factors that accelerate the progression of atherosclerosis. The disease is however reversible once the cause (excess fat) is removed. There may be a couple of outliers, but the trend is the more significant observation. Wikipedia, not always the most credible source on complex scientific issues. Did the Egyptians eat meat or not? While it is difficult to believe that certain meats, such as fish and wild poultry did not show up fairly frequently on the tables of common people, we are told by Egyptologists that it was for the most part only the rich who regularly feasted on most meat. The poor ate geese, ducks, quails, cranes and other species, and from the New Kingdom onward raised domesticated fowl. Most edible fish from the Nile were consumed, though some fish, such as the genera Lepidotus and Phragus and a few others were forbidden because of their connection with the myth of Osiris.Read more: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/diet.htm#ixzz2OLS5K8Cm YES. Yes, that's a big part of the problem. Humans are not adapted to consume concentrated fats. This is why intervention where total fat intake is lowered beyond a threshold reverses the disease. It's credible evidence and not evidence that favours meat consumption as being healthy for our species. It's part of a lot of other data that points to this conclusion, so it is not a particularly contraversial finding. There are numerous studies linking animal product consumption to inflammation.

My thoughts are that I don't accept this "rape culture" narrative. I apparantly live in a "rape culture", yet after 46 years of life I have not once been told or even heard it intimated that I should rape. So where is this rape culture? We actually live in a power-over culture because of the widespread belief in authority, i.e. might makes right, we also live in a culture where being weak and vulnerable is seen as being pathetic. As a man I experience this as the "man up" culture. We also live in a culture where bodily autonomy is disregarded very widely, a big example being children at school. The feminists cannot deal with the above truths because it doesn't get women as victims into the spotlight and because they want to keep their finger on the gun in the room. While they get attention they can get tax loot and emotional supply.

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EnZOwG4p1o]

Classification is pretty irrelivant to the discussion I suppose, it's just misleading use of a scientific sounding word. Grazing cattle probably consume the odd dead field mouse, this does not cause them to be classified as omnivores, nor does feeding cattle the rendered remains of sheep and chickens. So it seems this term omnivore is not applied consistently or has any specific and useful meaning. Creatures can sometimes eat things to which they are not biologically adapted, it's not particularly useful information.

Meat is poison because it causes toxic reactions in the body that eventually lead to a premature death becaus ethey promote atherosclerosis. There is science to support these claims. Arguing that it isn't a poison because it doesn't kill very quickly is missing the point. So far as I am aware Innuit average life expectancy is into the 40s largely because their lungs are damaged by the harsh climate. 400yo innuit mummies have been found with atherosclerosis. That's not what the science says. The populations with the greatest health and longevity live on a carbohydrate plant based diet. Are you serious? In which part of the program "Modern Meat Not Ahead of the Game" in my post above did you not see the primary research clearly being displayed along with the citations?

How is that, some form of precognition? A child could grow to be the next mass murder or develop brain damage and totally fail to become a moral actor. Future possibilities tell us nothing about the moral status we should assign in the present.

This is an unsupported assertion based on circular logic in a non-trivial field of scientific enquiry. If you have evidence from someone with scientific credentials then tell us about it. If you want to continue making these unsupported claims, of course you are free to, but I won't engage you further, I've spent perhaps thousands of hours and a considerable sum of money researching scientific literature around food and nutrition and my findings are strongly at varience to yours. Calling a creature an :omnivore" because it eats animal matter is simply restating the claim with different words, it proves nothing. The line about oxygen being toxic is just a straw-man distraction. Nobody is dying of oxygen poisoning, but nearly 100% of meat eating Westerners are suffering from atherosclerosis.

I am not saying this at all. Purchasing from a supermarket means a direct financial choice to support the killing. An accidental road kill taken as a meal involves no immorality. I think we agree on what sentience is and that newborns are sentient and thus worthy of moral consideration.

Why don't you account for the scientific data I presented above that demonstrates that even game food is cytotoxic? But in answer to your point: [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoAflQdc3CE] [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6j75BDq6DQ] That is myth unsupported by scientifc facts, see sources reported above in the videos.

Human canine teeth are "incisiform", a trait found in herbivores and frugivores, please look this up. Human teeth are entirely useless for rending flesh. Our canines are much reduced even compared to chimps (which are omnivores) and gorillas (which use them for threat display, not flesh eating). Our forward facing eyes go way back to our putative miocene ancestors who were thought to be frugivorous, same for our dental pattern. Eyes on the side of the head are helpful to terrestrial mammals that are predated and don't need to locate food items because they are highly abundant (i.e. vegetation). Our ancestors were probably arborial and having eyes on the front of the face is argued to be an adapatation to help locate fruit, same for our colour vision.

There's no science to support this idea either, all the human anatomy and physiology indicates that we are plant eaters. What are these adaptions to "minimal amounts of flesh"? The argument that humans can only tolerate animal products in minimal amounts is data indicating that we are not "omnivores", yes? Like a creationist, I think you're making this up as you go from some common myths you are attached to. Obtain some decent books and read the primary literature. If you can't be bothered to do this, spare everyone your uniformed opinions. Tell me about this when you discover that oxygen is atherogenic or can refute that animal products cause endotoxic inflammatory reactions after consumption. [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh8fzqucizQ]

As to the issues raised by the OP, the question is what constitutes the rules we use to assign moral status? When we answer this we can see if the same rules are relivant to non-human animals. Eating is also in general morally neutral, that is unless you are biting someones living ear off for your supper. In contrast, for example, consuming some road kill is morally neutral assuming you did not yourself kill the animal concerned but instead just happened upon it. Morality means taking the interests of other into consideration. This requires the thing of moral concern to have interests (non-living objects fail this test) and to be an "other" that is a sentient being aware of itself (many non-human animals pass this test, plants do not). The above rules work for humans as below. foetus - non-sentient, no moral status live human cancer cells in a petri dish - "human" but non-sentient, no moral status human neurons alive in a petri dish - human non-sentient, but like a plant reacts to environmental stimuli, no moral status living human with insignificant brain function (vegetative state) - alive, human but non-sentient, no moral status new born human child to adult and other than above - sentient, has moral status So I submit that the criteria for moral status are sentience (meaning self awareness), and this applies to many other animals but not to plants, and probably not to insects either.One can also consider that non-human animals homestead their body just as we do ours and are therefore the only legitimate owners of their being.

I would agree with this logic if it were based on scientific facts. However, there is no evidence that humans are carnivorous. The evidence is all indicative of a frugivorous evolution much as Darwin proposed. That and the fact that animal products are poisonous to humans pretty much seals the deal. For supporting evidence of the claims above I suggest you read the scientific literature.