Tyler Durden

First, this is my source: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/A0701E00.pdf Second, you're either not very good at math or you haven't looked at the numbers at all. We currently grow crops on 30% of the land, 19% for direct consumption, 11% to feed animals. That 19% supplies us with 83% of our energy. Which means that if we want to get 100% of our energy from crops we would need to change the 19% into 23%. That's no problem, because we're already using 30% of the land to grow crops. We just need to use more of it for ourselves instead of using it to feed animals. We don't even need to touch the 70% pasture land, you can forget what I said about it, I was trying to make a point but apparently it didn't come across and it's not relevant enough to keep talking about it. Third, I don't really enjoy this discussion. So if you're interested you can check out the report that I just gave you the link to and make up your own mind. But let's just end our discussion here. Just to be clear, I didn't say it was immoral to kill anything that's alive and healthy, I was specifically talking about animals. By necessity I mean either self-defense or survival. We don't need to kill these animals out of self-defense and we have more than enough plant food so we don't need to kill them for survival either. I understand your reasoning with regards to morality. But I don't think it matters whether these animals can reason or not, what matters is that they're sentient (unlike plants and bacteria) and that we don't need to kill them. In my view, being moral simply means that you don't cause unnecessary suffering and death to sentient beings. You may not agree with my use of the word moral, but I don't want to get into a discussion about that because I think it distracts from the main point, so feel free to call it empathy or kindness or whatever word you think applies best. I think your last point is interesting and I would like to ask a question about it. Since animal abuse is directly linked to child abuse I think it's reasonable to assume that the jobs provided by the meat industry attract people who have been abused as children. Do you not think that buying that meat and thereby paying these people to kill animals is encouraging unhealthy behavior in them?

Right now we use 19% of the land to grow crops directly for us and that provides us with 83% of our energy. Are you saying that neither the other 11% agricultural land nor the 70% pasture land is suitable to grow quality crops for the remaining 17% of our energy? The only killing that I consider humane is when an animal is sick or injured and about to die anyway and you take them out of their misery. Not when an animal is completely healthy and full of life. The immoral part is taking away a life when there is no necessity to do so.

It's the other way around, we would need less land, a lot less. The reason for that is that animals need a lot of food in order to produce relatively little meat. The meat industry is actually food production in reverse. 10 pounds of plant food get turned into 4 pounds of chicken meat, or 2 pounds of pork, or 1 pound of beef. Worldwide about a third of all the land is used for food "production". Of that land 19% is used as agricultural land to produce plant food for us, 11% is used as agricultural land to produce plant food for animals, and 70% is pasture land for animals. The 19% that is used to produce plant food for us provides us with 83% of our energy and 67% of our protein. The 81% that is used to produce meat, eggs and dairy products provides us with only 17% of our energy and 33% of our protein. So if everyone in the world stopped eating meat overnight we wouldn't need any more agricultural land than we already have. We would have more food and more available land.

Without going into the specifics of what this guy said, I have a question about the last sentence in your post. Don't you think that when over a billion animals are killed in slaughterhouses each week that actually is structural violence? When somebody slits the throat of another human being and lets him or her bleed to death we call it murder, but when someone does the exact same thing to an animal we don't use that word. I get it. But why is it that when someone uses that word with regards to animals, instead of kill, you immediately stop listening? I'm not trying to provoke you btw, it's a genuine question. The amount of animals killed by lions doesn't even come close to the amount of animals killed by humans. This post would have been so much better if you had left out the second paragraph. But you raise some good questions in the first, so let me answer those. Eggs: When the chicks come out of the eggs the males are separated from the females and the male chicks are killed immediately. The female chickens have been bred to lay over 300 eggs a year (instead of 10-15 a year) and after a year of laying eggs they are so exhausted that they're no longer useful to the industry, so they're killed at about a fifth of their natural lifespan. Dairy: Cows in the dairy industry are kept perpetually pregnant, they give birth once a year and all of their young are taken from them at birth. The males are transferred to the veil industry, the females are either selected to take their mom's place or they're transferred to the veil industry as well. After cows have given milk for 4 years they become less productive, so they're killed at about a quarter of their natural lifespan. There's a lot more to say about it, but these are the main reasons why I don't eat eggs or dairy products.

You sound like you're on the verge of making a dumb decision. How old are your children? And is your wife a virtuous person? If you take the sexual attraction out of the equation, what problems are left?

That's quite a story. I'm sorry to hear that you've had so much shit in your life. As for the apology. The guy sounds like an asshole but I do understand that you want to apologize for what you did. If I were you I would write him a short letter or email in which I specifically apologized for the assault, but I would leave everything else out of it. Something like this: Dear N, You probably didn't expect a letter from me, but I wanted to send you one because I feel like I owe you an apology. Regardless of the problematic history that you and I have, I want you to know that I truly regret assaulting you with a knife. I know there's nothing I can say that can undo the damage that I did, but you should at least know that I'm sorry. I don't think it would be a good idea for either of us to get back in touch, but I wish you well. Ella

So you want advice on how to deal with someone who doesn't want to hang out with you, hasn't been interested in that for over a decade, and has nothing interesting to say?

Okay, the first thing you need to do is separate that which matters from that which truly doesn't. If they're keeping you awake in the middle of the night on a weekday, that matters. But if they hang out in their front yard, keep trash and clothes there, work on a car there, that's their business. The second thing you do is repair your image. Right now they view you as their annoying neighbor who complains about everything and calls the cops on them. That image will get you nowhere. In fact, it will get you the opposite of what you want, as you've already experienced with the car incident. They're not going to take you seriously unless they respect you, and they're not going to respect you unless they feel respected by you. The easiest way to do that is to walk up to their house on a quiet day, ask for the dad or whoever is most respected, and say something like this: "I came here because, as neighbors, we've kind of gotten off to a bad start and I want to try and repair the relationship. You already now that I've had some trouble sleeping at night because of the noise, but I also realize that I've been kind of a dick to you guys calling the cops on you and complaining about all sorts of unrelated stuff. So I want to apologize for that. I want us to get along better in the future so I hope that we can make a new start. And in that light I would like to invite you all to dinner at my house. What do you say?" During that dinner just be nice to them, show interest in them, show them that you are more than just some guy who likes to complain. Build some credit. And from that point on make sure to greet them when you see them and make some smalltalk when you have time. The car in the front yard was actually a great opportunity for smalltalk or for offering your help. Once you've improved the relationship and changed your image to that of the friendly and respectable neighbor you'll actually have some credit with them. And asking them to keep the noise down won't be nearly as hard as it is now.

I don't think getting into a marriage with stepchildren is a mistake in itself, but it's definitely more challenging. Your story is definitely interesting enough to talk to Stef about and I recommend you do that. That said, let me add some of my own thoughts: First of all, your main responsibility is to your own child. His/her needs are more important than your own, because he/she is not there by choice. So if you bring other people into his/her life the least you can do is pick someone who likes him/her. If your wife doesn't like your child that's completely unacceptable, she should either really work on that or you should get a divorce. That's your responsibility as a father. Second of all, you owe her children the same respect. They didn't choose their mom, they didn't choose whatever happened to their dad, they didn't choose you, and they can't leave. You chose to get involved with their mom and that makes you their stand-in dad, so you better act like one. Not liking them is simply not an option, just like not liking your own kids is not an option, they're work in progress and your job is to be the best role model you can possibly be and raise them like they were your own. If you don't want to do that then you should call it quits. Third of all, the suggestion from therapist b sucks for three reasons. One, 10 years is not a short period, it's half a childhood. Two, both of you didn't decide to have children to suck it up and wait it out, you had them to have a good time with them. And three, children grow up and leave the house but they will always be your children, it will suck if they come visit and you still can't get along, and it will suck even more if they don't even want to visit. So if you still think this can work my advice would be to talk to your wife about this and start working on the stepparent-child relationships. And schedule a call with Stef.

It's immoral. You're right that there is consent between the two parties at the beginning, but it only becomes fraud when one of the parties deviates from the agreement. The pawn broker example is not an example of fraud. It's just an example of someone who sold a bracelet for less than he could have. An example of fraud would be when I come to your house as a representative for UNICEF and ask for a donation. You, being the kind and generous person that you are, decide to give me 50 bucks. I thank you on behalf of underprivileged children around the world and leave. But I don't bring the money to UNICEF, I just keep it for myself. You voluntarily gave me the money, because we had an agreement, and the agreement was that I would bring your money to UNICEF. You and I both consented to that. And if I had actually done that everything would be fine. But because I didn't keep my end of the deal, I am now a fraudster and you've lost 50 bucks. So basically fraud is just a breach of contract without notifying the other party and without restitution.

I'm not a fan of schools either, in my experience they do nothing but turn people into boring mediocre individuals, so I wouldn't send my kids there. But apart from the whole school issue, here's how you deal with a situation like that: The first thing you do, which should be your default position at all times, is realize that everyone makes mistakes and that making mistakes is the only way to ever become better at anything. You can do a million dumb things, but if you learn from all of them you're not a dumb person. So your feeling of self worth should not be in any way connected to the amount of mistakes you make, only to the way you deal with those mistakes. Which brings us to the second thing you need to do, which is to find out why people laugh. Did you make a mistake? Did you actually say or do something that was incorrect? If you didn't make a mistake you can say: "Yeah, I know it sounds funny. But I'm actually right." If you're not sure if you made a mistake, or if you feel like challenging the others, you can say: "Why is that funny?" "No seriously, why is that funny?" And if you realize that you did in fact make a mistake, and you see what you did wrong, you can say: "Yeah, okay. I know. Laugh it up guys." That's basically it. If you handle it like this, none of these scenarios should be a big deal.

Great! Me neither. Go right ahead. I'd like to hear it, and I don't think I'm the only one.

Your childhood sounds truly disturbing, congratulations to you for surviving that. As for the issue at hand. I think the problem arises from a slight misunderstanding of what it means to heal yourself. You talk about going to a light-bondage club and a church in the bad part of town and you call it "novelty nights". So you basically go and watch traumatized people act out their dysfunction and you label it as entertainment. You also say "I hate it that some douchebag preacher can have this sort of effect upon me. I wish I was a normal person..." which to me signals that you think being fully healed means that you can expose yourself to all kinds of crazy and just be like "oh this person is crazy, it doesn't faze me". But that's not the case. In fact, your reaction to that douchebag preacher was pretty damn normal. What was not normal was the decision to go there and the ignoring of all the red flags, from the "bad part of town" red flag to the "this is a church" red flag to the "yelling out random things" red flag. You probably ignored several red flags every minute since the "service" began. Until finally the guy just rolled out the biggest red flag he could find and everyone pulled their own red flags out from under their seats and started waving them at you. And only then did you wake up. So instead of trying to find a way to calm yourself down, be thankful to your unconscious for its healthy, though somewhat late, response. And change your "novelty nights" to something healthy. Go play squash or something.

I understand how you feel. And unfortunately I can't absolve you of your guilt, it was your own decision to do that to the cat. But the story about what your father did to you explains a lot. The simple fact that he demanded to be addressed as sir indicates how much distance there was between the two of you. And the violence is absolutely brutal. There's no denying that the abuse he inflicted on you influenced your behavior. I also don't think it's very productive to continue feeling hatred and contempt for yourself and calling yourself a disgusting worthless piece of shit. So I would start looking for a way to make up for what you did. Obviously you can't make it up to that particular cat. But there are many things you can do to improve the lives of other animals. I'd say that if you go vegetarian for a year you'll be pretty much back on track with the rest of the people. If you keep it up longer you can even become more considerate of animals than the average person. Apart from that, therapy is probably a good idea, to process the abuse your father inflicted on you.

I understand that it's hard, and she probably did have a shit hand dealt to her. I also agree with you that once you've developed unhealthy behavior it can be very hard to pull out of that. You can relate to that. But what you can't relate to is being as messed up as she was, barely able to take care of herself, in a relationship with an abusive man, and deciding to bring not one, not two, not three, but four innocent children into that situation. That's what makes her unsympathetic. If you've been dealt a shit hand you can choose between two paths. You can either take the path of alcohol, messed up relationships, and other unhealthy behavior. Or you can take the harder, but rewarding, path to work on your issues until you've resolved them and are in a position to have children. But you can't do both at the same time, that's when you lose every right to play the victim card. Imagine your sister did that. Imagine she got addicted to alcohol and got in a relationship with an asshole. It would be understandable since she too was dealt a shit hand. But imagine she would then tell you that she had decided to get a baby with this man. Wouldn't you be like "What the fuck?! How irresponsible are you? You know how much shit we had to go through as children and now you're repeating the same damn cycle?" Because that's what your mom did. It's not a kind and loving decision, it's very self-centered actually. Yeah, it's freaking crazy. I've known people like that too. They just go into crazy mode and when they come out of it they don't even understand their own actions. But they don't want to understand it either. They don't want to be held responsible for what they did. They're just like "I'm sorry alright! How many times do I have to say it for you to stop bringing it up again, leave it in the past already" and if you don't confront them they're happy to not say anything about it at all and pretend it didn't happen. And on the one hand that makes it harder to see their actions as coming from the same person. But on the other hand it makes it easier, because the very fact that they're so unwilling to reflect shows how aware they are of what they did. If it was genuinely out of their control they would respond with curiosity, they would be like "yeah, I don't know why I did that, but I can imagine it was scary for you, I really need to figure out what triggered this and I understand that you don't trust me anymore". But they react completely different, because they know they had control over their actions and they just don't want to be reminded of that and they don't want to accept responsibility for it. I guess that's good. I think this paragraph right here holds the key to your healing process. When you were a child you couldn't get angry at your mom because she was so incredible unstable that you had to treasure those moments when you felt safe. You had to hang on to them as much as possible, and getting angry at her would put you at serious risk of losing those moments of safety. You even say "it'd kill me to lose that". Which is quite accurate actually. What if you got angry at her and she actually decided to kill herself and you and your siblings would be left with just your dad. That was a seriously frightening scenario. So you avoided that, and kept focusing on the happy moments. But that's not your situation anymore. Now you're an adult, you live somewhere else, and your mother is no longer alive. It would not kill you to get mad at her. In fact, you would be just as safe as you are now, and you also wouldn't forget the good memories you have of her. You would just be putting them in perspective. The feelings of depression are only there because you're keeping yourself trapped in this position. You want to get mad at your mom, but this fear is holding you back. And you shouldn't let it. It's no longer necessary. Once you can get past this fear you'll feel a lot better. And you deserve to feel a lot better. All in all I think you're heading in the right direction. But I really hope that you'll allow yourself to get angry sometime soon, it would be very healthy.